The best place to buy coffee beans?

VanMan2007

I'm sure the supermarkets supply them, but is there a better way to buy them, in terms of quality or price?

If you want to add your preferences of makers, filters, etc, that would also be welcome.

perfecta1

anyone can advice about coffee machine which will do a coffee that tastes like from McDonald/Costa/ Starbucks???

mildred1978

In answer to the op - Costco.

System

I have used a francis francis x1 for years, makes good coffee and looks good - but quite expensive! recently used a starbucks branded one when I was away somewhere and it was great, but not sure the cost of it!
For beans I used to use a company called the roast and post coffee company, not sure if they still exist or not but they had a good selection, since then i've just been picking up random bags of beans here and there - one of the nicest I've found is mountain thunder coffee which I got in hawaii - been trying to see if there is any coming into the uk!!

gmgmgm

For normal coffee, supermarkets e.g. Waitrose are the best/easiest.

Hasbean (google) are also good, but are more specialised.

Amazon do decent burr grinders and cafetieres. Nothing else needed :-)

tlh858

perfecta1 wrote: »

anyone can advice about coffee machine which will do a coffee that tastes like from McDonald/Costa/ Starbucks???

If you want the coffee as used in Starbucks, go to any of their stores and buy it as whole beans or ready ground. They also sell various machines to make the coffee.

If you want it to taste just like it does when made there, then give up now. All of the water used in the stores is filtered and processed before it gets to the machines, and the water processing equipment is very expensive and takes up a substantial amount of space.

slipperyshoe

As someone above said, it is as much to do with the prep as the bean. A good burr grinder and a cafetiere will give you a good cuppa. I have a Jura Ena 7 machine which is a bean to cup and has built in filters etc- it's fantastic but is very expensive (around £500). If you work out the cost of a takeaway coffee it doesnt actually take that long to pay for itself though (at least that is what I told OH!).

As far as coffee goes I use a local company called Coffee Solutions. I pay around £62 for 12 500g bags. The coffee is pretty good, somewhere between Illy (one of my favourites) and Lavazza. The best coffee is comes from the civet cat (picked out from their poo (google it!!).

Even with my machine I still find it hard to match that in some coffee shops; personally I'm not a big fan of Starbucks but do rate Costa. McDonalds isnt half bad, especially for price.

In summary you need to buy whole bean coffee and grind it yourself, cheapest way is to buy a good grinder from ebay and use a cafetiere. Easiest way is to buy a decent quality bean to cup machine.