Midpack
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We buy beans, grind and brew. French press sometimes, drip otherwise, but I hope to avoid methods on this thread.
I usually buy our beans at Costco, but I'd like to mix in something special once in a while. Short of hard to get exotics, your local purveyors or crazy priced beans, what are the best beans you know of that can be bought at most brick-n-mortar stores - available year round?
IME say Starbucks is the benchmark (just to provide a reference), Peet's is better, Intelligentsia better still (before they were bought out at least), and Julius Meinl the best I've ever had that's repeatable. The best I've ever had was an Ethiopian from Bloomington Coffee Roasters, but the next pound wasn't as good and not available local (for me) - scratch that.
I saw an interview with the CEO of Illy today, never tried it, started me wondering...
I usually buy our beans at Costco, but I'd like to mix in something special once in a while. Short of hard to get exotics, your local purveyors or crazy priced beans, what are the best beans you know of that can be bought at most brick-n-mortar stores - available year round?
IME say Starbucks is the benchmark (just to provide a reference), Peet's is better, Intelligentsia better still (before they were bought out at least), and Julius Meinl the best I've ever had that's repeatable. The best I've ever had was an Ethiopian from Bloomington Coffee Roasters, but the next pound wasn't as good and not available local (for me) - scratch that.
I saw an interview with the CEO of Illy today, never tried it, started me wondering...
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