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Cheap Coffee Ratings:



I am doing this rating because the judgment of many other sites that offer ratings seem to be tainted by their business partners and advertisement.The rating given here are based on my personal experience, considering  both taste and price. The grades are given from A+ (best) to F- (worst). You will note that since I am on a scholary budget, I do not have the money to buy/taste expensive brands (like 50$ a cup Kopi Luwak), so the reviews are mostly done for the economic ones.

Note: The quality of coffee brands changes from harvest to harvest. So, in case  I state that your beloved coffee brand tastes like the unfiltered water of Cloaca Maxima, well that might be the reason.  Also, I brew my coffee in "French Press" style (learned from my former PhD adviser), which I am pretty proud of, and drink it black. 

Also, check these articles about coffee and health.


Coffee Brand

Review

Grade

 Organic

Decaf:

Price $
Trader Joe's, Café Duran, Estate Grown This is an example of neutral  coffee, with no particular  taste or aroma. If you are interested in boring coffee, this is the coffee for you C- No No 6.99 (13-OZ)
Trader Joe's Wintry Blend Coffee The spices added to this medium-dark roast coffee has made one of the most terrible coffee blends ever. However, for some strange reasons I believe my grandmother would have liked it. D- No No 6.99(14-OZ)
Trader Joe's French Roast Decent dark roast coffee for its price. B No Yes 6.99 (13-OZ)
Trader Joe's Shade Grown Dark French Roast You can not go darker (well you can but it would taste like charcoal). Putting aside of it being Organic, not much better than the above cheaper brand. C+ Yes No. 8.99 (13-OZ)
Trader Joe's Italian Roast Cheap dark roast coffee. Not good for French press. C No Yes 6.99 (13-OZ)
Trader Joe's Yemen Mocha Ultra dark roast. Tastes like charcoal. C No No 9.49 (13-OZ)
Trader Joe's 100% Kona Medium roast, sweet flavor, decent coffee, perhaps TJ's  best brand. However, in my opinion Kona coffee is overpriced, and thus this brand is too expensive for its quality.  If you add stuff to your coffee (e.g. milk) then  you are wasting your money. B No No 19.99(13-OZ)
Trader Joe's Peaberry These rather smaller size coffee beans are roasted Medium dark. Has decent flavor and tastes sweet, and very cheap! Certainly worth trying. B No No 5.99(14-OZ)
Trader Joe's Moka Java Medium roast coffee. I had heard great things about this medium roast brand but it does not stand for its reputation . It is drinkable though specially it tastes good if accompanied by a piece of toast or a cookie. B- No Yes 7.99 (16-OZ)
Trader Joe's Tarrazu Medium dark and cheap. It is perfectly roasted (not too weak yet not burned).  My new favorite from Trader Joe's. B+ No No 5.99 (13-OZ)
Harmony Bay Hazelnut Creme Surprisingly it is not that bad if you like flavored coffee (not for real coffee lovers). My suggestion add one spoon of it to three spoons of a tasteless coffee that you have got stuck with (e.g. Café Duran) to make both drinkable. C+ No No 5.99 (12-OZ)
Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company Decaf Hazelnut Horrible bitter coffee. Hazelnut flavor is fine. D- Yes Yes 10/lb
Santa Cruz Coffee Roasting Company Decaf Peruvian French Roast Not much aroma, but still quite drinkable. C+ Yes Yes 10.4/lb
Peet's Coffee Major Dickason's Blend Great taste, full bodied coffee (I forgive the weird name). My favorite brand of coffee. A
 No No 12.5/lb
Peet's Coffee Lost Toraja Blend  Peet's claims that this is a special blend that until recently was lost to the world. I think there was a good reason why it got lost in the first place. It has a distinct taste that I don't care much for and it is expensive. So, I rather to stick with the Major Dickason's blend. C+ No No 13.5/lb
Peet's Coffee House Blend  Spicy slightly dark blend has a mellow taste (medium body and acidity). It is a conservative choice to be served in a group.  B- No No 10/lb
Peet's Coffee Mocca Java  Decent medium body coffee. Like any other Swiss Water decafed coffee brands some taste and flavor is lost, but overall this is one one of my favorite decaffed brands.  B  No Yes 13.95/lb
Peet's Ethiopian Super Natural  When I drink coffee I like it to taste like coffee. As it is advertised, this brand has a distinct taste of blueberries. I don't appriciate its taste nor its price (I rather drink fruit tea!).  C- Yes No 17.90/lb
Seattle's Best French Roast A very good full bodied low-acid coffee.  B+ Yes No 10.49/12OZ
Narsai's Premium Blend Coffee A so-so dark drinkable coffee without much taste. I suspect that the coffee bag that I bought was not air tight (which is still the coffee company's fault) so the coffee had lost some of its flavor. C+ No No 9.99/12 OZ
Alter Eco, Panoga Cooperative: Peru Dark roast, tastes terrible. The only consolation is that it is Fair Trade.
Adding a hint of cocoa to it makes it drinkable (4 scoops of coffee +half a tea spoon cocoa).		 D Yes No 6.99/10 OZ

 French Press Coffee:

You can read about French Press coffee brewing technique from its Wikipedia article. I would like to add two important facts to this article:
  1. Timing is everything ! Never  keep the coffee in the French Press coffee maker less than 4 or more than 6 minutes. 5 minutes is the ideal time. The coffee would have a bitter (burned) taste after 6 minutes.
  2. For the same reason above, do not use one those travel mug/ French press all-in-one combos (remember ground coffee and water shall be separated after 6 minutes!).
  3. Ground coffee lose flavor much faster than coffee beans, so do not buy ground coffee. Also, unless you have a coffee business or something, do not buy big (economic) bags of coffee (e.g. from Costco), since even whole coffee beans lose flavor in 15 days or so.

Is Coffee Good for You, and the Historic Fight Between Caf and Defac Coffee

There is a debate going on whether coffee is good or bad for you. The defenders of coffee believe that coffee will reduce the risk of diabetes  and delivers tannin and antioxidants to your body. Coffee enemies state that all this is B.S. and coffee may cause  you heart disease,...besides  even filtered or decaf coffee has been found harmful in some research. Moreover, my favorite French Press coffee, unlike the drip coffee, can increase cholesterol levels .

So, what is the truth?
 Maybe the most important thing that I learned about medical experiments and reports is "READING THE FINE PRINTS OF A STUDY". Since we do not have access to the original complete  reports, and we just rely on the "magazine printed" version of them, I guess the best way is to read as many research articles as we can and then use our common sense to make our conclusion. Here are mine:
  1. If you drink decaf, make sure that the decaffeination process is  non-chemical  (swiss-water  or liquid carbon dioxide method). Admittedly more flavor will be lost in this process comparing to the chemical decaffeination methods.
  2. Drink Arabica bean coffee and not the cheaper  Robust beans (do I sound like Marie Antoinette?). Anyway, the robust coffee not only has a lower quality but also seems to be more harmful to your health.
  3. I guess it is reasonable to drink USDA certified organic coffee. Remember that  some coffee beans are grown in the most lawless parts of the world and there is no guaranty that for example  the coffee crop is not exposed to the DDT or other dangerous pesticides.
  4. Do not use bleached (white) coffee filters if you use drip method (who needs more chemicals in their drinks).
  5. Do not drink regular (caffeinated) coffee if you have high blood pressure.
  6. And finally, I do not think that one cup of   coffee would kill you (no guarantee!), however even too much of a good thing might be bad... But in case you die, it would be an honorable death for a great cause (consider yourself a sort of martyr or something).
Also it has been recently discovered that coffee may slow liver damage from Alcohol abuse. Therefore, to justify (and feel good about) your coffee drinking habit, you might want to also start binge drinking (just kidding).
 

Grinding Coffee:

Grinding coffee uniformly is a very important factor in making decent coffee. There are two main types of coffee  grinders: A. the more expensive Burr grinders that promise a more uniform grind. B. the cheaper Blade (chopping) grinders.

Since French Press Coffee needs uniform coarse grind, the Burr Burr coffee grinders seem to be necessary. However, my experience tells me to either buy an expensive GOOD burr grinder or buy a much cheap blade grinder (a cheap burr grinder which is still much more expensive than the most expensive blade grinder is useless). Here is the story. I recently bought this Capresso 555.01 Burr Grinder which is priced about 50-70$ and guess what, it grinds much worse (and less uniformly) than my 30$   Back to Basic Blender Express (a blade type grinder which I also use to make smoothies with). 

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