If it comes in a can, it is IMO not drinkable! Fresh beans freshly ground only.

Same for us. I'll ignore the previous back and forth, If you are getting beans ground in a shop, even at a good roasters, it's not the same as fresh ground every day, And as far as grounds on the counter, well, I'm still capable of wiping that up.

I’m capable of wiping up grounds, too, but I don’t want to and I get tired of cleaning out the grinder every day. To each his/her own.

I buy whatever is on sale. I'm not fussy but I refuse to drink Starbucks. It's way too strong and too expensive.

I rarely spill any grounds. And it's just as easy to spill preground coffee too, IMO.

Aldi's definitely not an expensive grocery store.

I do realize not everybody is into grinding their own beans. I make only 2 cups every morning and it takes me some time to finish a bag, so I figure whole beans keep longer, just like whole spices.

FWIW, I do pour through with an old Melitta cone I've had for years. I make 2 cups at once in a pyrex carafe and keep it hot on a small warming tray.

If you're really not into brewing fresh coffee, there's always instant - tho the only instant coffee I've tasted that isn't horrible is Starbucks in those little skinny packets.

Chock full o' Nuts original for freshly brewed.

Peets Major Dickason's Blend for the Keurig.

I brew a fresh pot of Chock full o' Nuts each morning. When I want a quick cup later in the day, I'll put a Peets in the Keurig.

This is why I'm up all night!

Jane

There is nothing like stirring up a little controversy on a Sunday, is there?

I appreciate all answers, even if not quite what I meant when asking.

Early in my career, I had a new business client's CEO say to me " I may often not know enough about a subject to be able to ask the right questions. So rather than restricting your responses to strictly what I asked about and omitting something important, please assume I may not have asked the right question. I'll appreciate if you would add whatever other information you think I should know about."

That comment was so insightful for me to hear, it stuck. I've experienced this too many times. An incomplete question that might lead to an incomplete answer if mechanically answered in a narrow way. I probably go overboard but I tend to answer questions completely and broadly. If something matters to me and it doesn't matter to you, fine. No name calling is needed in either direction.

I know nothing about canned pre-ground coffee. Many of the above grocery store brands are pre-ground but bagged.

And I love my Land Rover. LOL

Well this query has taken an interesting swerve. After trying different coffees and methods of preparing them, I have a very generic, medium coffee taste and that Tasters Choice (which I buy at Costco) perfectly hits the spot every morning, with a little sugar and a lot of milk. We used to do Keurig types and then I worried about the piles of little plastic thingies we were generating.

I enjoy hearing about the different coffees / combinations people like because if it sounds really interesting -- I'll try something new! On the other hand, I'm really thankful that we all don't like exactly the same things, or drive the same cars. Wouldn't that be rather dull!

Bustelo is on our grocery shelf and we thought about trying it -- and our grocery has had a variety of decaf instants available (something in the supply chain they don't seem to be able to keep the same ones in stock).

Instant potato flakes came out when I was a pre-teen. Being the potato peelers for seven people, we girls thought it was a great invention. My mother bought a box. My potato snob father grumbled--he wasn't eating that fake stuff.

A few nights later, while my father was preoccupied watching the nightly news in the living room, my mother told us to go ahead and make them. At the dinner table, all eyes were upon him as he raised a forkful of mashed potato flakes to his mouth. He never said a word because he didn't notice the difference.

Back then, we also used margarine instead of butter and we sometimes even used powdered milk. Both likely went into those mashed potatoes. We were just thankful to have food on the table. We couldn't afford to be snobby in those days.

Eileen, if your father had noticed the taste of potato flakes would you have called him a snob? I most certainly would have noticed. Am I a snob because I can taste the difference between flaked potatoes and fresh peeled and cooked potato? I dont think so. I can taste the difference. I can taste. I might not object to the taste of flake potatoes but that doesnt mean I cant taste the difference.

No, we wouldn't have made them again. We were just so surprised because we assumed he'd know right away and refuse to eat them.

I think we shared a father or maybe a sort of father.

Coffee for some people matters and for others it is just a hot brown liquid that is drunk from time to time during the day. I grew up with things like Maxwell house, though a lot of it(strong) and my Grannie used Chase and Sanborn-a quarter cup for two cups in a small drip pot. Powerful stuff. Our coffee was strong. I cant remember not having my own cup and my Grannie spooned it into my mouth when I was an infant. She even gave it to the cat-lots of milk. I have cut way back in my old age but I want it dark roast with a good nip to it with milk and sugar. I am perfectly happy that other people like different sorts of coffee. Still, I know what I like. Perhaps it is best to not develop a more refined palate for coffee. It can be hard to drink what seems to be bad coffee.

About 6 months ago I started to make a cold brew coffee with a dark roast fair trade brand from my grocery store that I ground there. I put the coffee in a large container of water where it sat for 18-24 hours, and then used a french press and put it into another container to store. I started it for my son who was buying cold brew on his way to work, and I put mine into the microwave to heat it with a generous amount of almond milk. It was really delicious, but when I broke my dominant wrst 6 weeks ago I abandoned it for my easy Keurig. I must admit I miss it and tend to feel guilty using the Keurig that contributes to the landfill, but it was a great fallback given the circumstances. I never tried it with less expensive grocery brands and this thread makes me think I should for comparison. I love coffee and my use has not altered with age!

I remember when my mom use to buy A & P 8'Oclock coffee in bags for the hiolidays. I loved the smell. Most of the time it was canned Foldgers or Maxwell House made in a electric percolator. Anyone use those any more? I didn't start drinking coffee till I had moved out and drank whatever my room mate bought. It was just something to wake me up. I didn't realize till I was in my 30's that coffee could have really good flavor. I guess I became a coffee "snob".

I use to buy small bags of different roasts from a small local coffee shop that roasted them in small batches. They ground them at the time you picked them. It was a lot more expensive. That was when I was the only coffee drinker and drank only one cup in the morning. When DH started drinking coffee at age 40, we bought large bags of whole beans and ground them everyday. When Costco finally came to town, we started buying whole beans there. It is San Francisco Bay brand.

Since having Parkinsons for over 10 years, I have lost most of my sense of smell and taste. I just drink coffee to wake up and keep from getting a headache now. Gone are the days of being a coffee snob.

I've bought Midaglio D'Oro instant coffee to use for cooking. I have a friend who will drink it when he visits because I do not otherwise have coffee in the house. I do drink one cup of tea in the morning, but otherwise I am not interested in consuming caffeine.

In Mexico, they make cafe con leche by heating milk and then adding instant Nescafe to it.

If you drink very little coffee, I think that there are brands of instant coffee now that are acceptable. They've improved instant coffee in recent years.

Personally, I find the smell of roasting coffee offensive, and it makes me a bit nauseous.

I think Mormons might have the right idea by refusing to consume caffeine. My father never did, and he had immense energy from the time he woke up at 5 AM. People who consume massive amounts of caffeine will go through withdrawals if they do not have it, which can include headaches. It is definitely addictive, but not necessarily in a bad way, as long as you can get it.

In high school I used to work as a checkout clerk at the local A&P....I always enjoyed running the grinder..."And how would you like that ground?"

That was way before I started drinking coffee. I feel there's a difference between having taste preferences (for cheap or expensive, common or exotic, coffees) and looking down on others for not having the same tastes. If you can taste the differences and have preferences -- enjoy your coffee!

This one from Aldi in a vacuum packed brick.

thespruceeats.com has some interesting reviews and recommendations:

https://www.thespruceeats.com/best-ground-coffee-4844278

Our Top Picks

Death Wish Coffee Co. Ground Coffee at Amazon Best Dark Roast:Hailed as the world's strongest coffee, Death Wish is two to four times stronger than a normal cup of joe.

Kicking Horse Coffee Smart Ass Blend at Amazon Best Medium Roast:This is for the coffee drinker tired of making the same medium roast every day.

Starbucks Veranda Blend at Amazon Best Light Roast:The primary flavor notes are soft cocoa and lightly toasted nuts.

Mount Hagen Instant Coffee at Amazon Best Instant:Mount Hagen's instant coffee is as tasty as it is easy to make.

No Fun Jo Decaf Ground Coffee at Amazon Best Decaf:Even though it's decaf, customers rave about the flavor, which combines blueberry and milk chocolate.

La Colombe Corsica Dark Roast at Lacolombe.com Best for French Press:Customers can preselect the best grind size for their coffee maker when ordering.

Seattle's Best Coffee House Blend Ground Coffee at Amazon Best Budget:There are 10 tasty options at an affordable price.

New England Coffee Ground Coffee at Amazon Best Flavored:New England Coffee is the go-to name for variety, offering over 25 flavored blends.

Eileen, we think alike on this! Sometimes humor doesn't come through as intended to the whole audience, but that doesn't mean people should stop trying. If I'd been feeling insulted, I'd have taken a humorous approach back -- something like "Excuse me, I'm not a coffee snob, I'm a coffee enthusiast!"

I called myself a coffee snob, no one else.

How crazy some of these threads get lol. So here's my contribution 😂

Elizabeth, looks like they were drawn to coffee brands with unique and sassy names! Seattle's Best is Starbucks; it was my go-to before Starbuck's bought them out.

anything but sanka

I'm with Cilantro, I like the Aldi German brick coffee. I'l also drink a lot of other kinds. Some are too heavy like Starbucks often is. We have a grinder and I grind beans when we are using those. I love the smell of freshly ground coffee.I enjoy going places and trying new coffees when available.

I'll be going to Aldi tomorrow, so I will take a look at the coffee. Adellabedella and ci_lantro, can you describe how German blend is different?

I have had the free coffee at Ikea and wasn't impressed - although, I have to repeat, coffee in general still doesn't impress me. Remember it was only a couple of years ago that I wouldn't drink it at all because I just didn't like the flavor. (This applies to beer also - still don't like it except in stoofvlees.)

The Aldi coffee reminds me of the lighter roast of the Green Mountain coffee. It's already ground. It smells fresh ground when opened. I like to keep it in the freezer to help it stay fresh longer. I buy both the light roast and medium roast... not sure which I like better.

Raee, I'm like you about coffee. It smells sooo good---smells 100x better than it tastes. IMO, Kahlua is the only 'coffee' that actually tastes good. :-)

Back to Aldi German Roast--I think the flavor is more rounded than typical run of the mill coffee out of the can. Not bitter or sharp or burnt from over roasting. Fresher tasting.

Obviously I am not a coffee snob. If I was, I would proudly wear the badge. Being a "Coffee Snob" is the roughly the same thing as being a Coffee Connoisseur, 'snob' being easier to spell and less uppity sounding.

I never clean my coffee grinder out. I don't see the point. I tap it on the counter to get as much of the grounds out as I can, then pour them in my little coffee canister. I use a Keurig with refillable pods so I grind enough coffee (really fine grind) that will last a day or two. Usually two grinder cups full. I don't use the grinder for anything else so why bother wiping it out?

I'm with you. We're using the same grinder for 45 years now. I admit that I'll use a toothpick and scrape it annually or so (I'm overdue by 3 or 4 years). And no, my coffee is not rancid at all.

I clean my electric grinder daily - wiped out with a soapy sponge, then a rinsed sponge, and dried well. Coffee has oils that go rancid quickly to my nose. And I also occasionally use the grinder for spices too, so I don't want lingering odors.

We like strong black coffee. Spouse can drink double espressos before bedtime and still get to sleep, LOL. I only wish I could!

If it's supermarket coffee, then first preference is Illy's Espresso Intenso. Second is Cafe Bustelo, which surprised us with a very smooth, low acid blend of Robusta beans.

Instant is the Medaglio D'Oro Instant Espresso powder, which is also dynamite added to almost any chocolate baked desserts!

Sadly, we gave up on Peet's. The quality of their French Roast, even the Organic, just keeps declining. We love the artisanal Flying Goat, but although they sell on-line, they won't mail it out.

Folgers is acceptable and Trader Joe's has decent coffee too, Best coffee I ever had was in Costa Rica and in Africa when we were on safari.

Actually, my favorite cup of coffee that I recall was one I got at an interstate travel plaza in the middle of the night, somewhere in West Virginia on my way to Richmond VA for the cycling world championships. Perhaps I was just desperate for caffeine - the drive was taking twice as long as my mapping app said it would - but I enjoyed it. It was a Dutch sounding brand name, IIRC.

I don't like strong bitter coffee so I drink instant decaf Taster's Choice at work or Jacob's Kronung coffee which I used to drink when stationed in Germany and can now buy it at Amazon.com. I bought a pack of them last year when things were looking grim for coffee and wanted to have enough to last me. Well, then I got hooked on cold brew coffee and didn't drink so much of the hot stuff. I gave a couple bags away and still have some that will last me through the winter. They are now outdated but are whole beans so I'm hoping they will be okay.

"It was a Dutch sounding brand name, IIRC."

Maybe Douwe Egberts?

You don't want to hear how this name is pronounced in Dutch. (It's said that while learning some languages is a pain in the neck, learning Dutch is a pain in the throat)

Thanks, Elmer, that sounds familiar.

When I was on a cycling tour of Nord Brabant, I struggled with the pronunciation of some of the villages and other words. When I started the trip, the only food words I knew (and could say understandably) were cheese, bread, tea and beer. So that is what I had for lunch for several days - where I was, not everyone spoke English, including in the small cafes.)

We like the Dunkin Donuts coffee, we buy it at the grocery store. My husband loves the french vanilla the best, I kinda like the regular medium roast the best.

Some years back, we always bought Maxwell House, usually got it from Sam's Club, but then it started to taste and smell like old cigarette butts...HAHA!

raee, in that area, 's-Hertogenbosch is one that gives foreigners a head scratch. Dutch phonetics and pronounciation are pretty regular and not too hard to learn but they are their own thing and unguessable.

Other examples, not in North Brabant, a foreigner will never get right are Gouda, Den Haag (The Hague) or Schevenigen (a nearby town). Too many to mention, probably best to say "none" are pronounceable if one doesn't know the sound of letters in Dutch. The G in Gouda (the middle vowels sound like how, not like who) and Haag is pronounced like the sound of trying to clear mucus from your throat.

Arkansas girl, I 've added Maxwell House to my "do not try" list! Old cigarette butts, Blechh!

I've noticed that some products bought at Sam's Club are not the same quality as at a regular store (although most have been the same) - I wonder if that could be true of the coffee?

Many years ago Maxwell house coffee was my first choice, I thought it really was 'good to the last drop'. I honestly don't know what changed, my taste buds or the coffee, but I quit buying it long before Sam's Club came on the scene.

Rusty

We had been buying MH for years and all of a sudden we just noticed that when we opened the container, the aroma didn't smell like yummy coffee like it used to and I can only describe the smell as smelling more like cigarette butts than coffee. Needless to say, we stopped buying it.

DH likes Dunkin’.’ I like Peets but willing to try other.

i have a backup coffee maker, good supply of coffee and big stock of filters. I do not want to get ip and find I cannot make make coffee!

Trader Joes used to offer a tiny cup of coffee & food sample, but no more. I miss that.

I don't care for coffee, but DH wants two cups at breakfast, so I'll have half a cup to be sociable. We do pour-over with a filter. We've ground beans. We've had Kona. We don't like Starbucks. Today I buy ground LavAzza dark roast (a green stripe label) in the grocery or via Amazon. It's a super-fine grind.

Today's news predicts higher prices for coffee, partly due to weather conditions in Brazil. A story said that 50% of the cost of the coffee you buy at the grocery is the cost of the coffee itself, but only 5% of what you buy at Starbucks, etc. is the coffee.

My parents were big coffee drinkers. I remember when they switched from Maxwell House and Folgers to Hills Brothers in the 1980s. They thought it was great coffee. Maybe that brand will give you the traditional taste you seem to be after.

I find I like single origin coffees more than blends. Blends are too weak if you add cream. You need a medium roast with creamer.

Target brand Cinnamon Vanilla. I love Target's coffees.

Target hadn't crossed my mind, thanks!

Another vote here for Aldi's German Roast, regular ground coffee. It's 100% Arabica coffee and a brick is just over a pound robust and creamy coffee. Keurig can get pricey if it's all you drink, so I do Keurig for first morning cup since it's fast lol, then brew a small pot for additional cups and reheat if need be. Did I mention I'm a coffee nut (bean)?

I am a life long coffee lover. I can pretty much drink (almost) any coffee, but can enjoy some more than others. I drink 2 cups in the morning and then switch to decaf.

We have a keurig now, but I usually fill my own with the reusable pods.

Lately my favorite (and I am surprise no one mentioned it -maybe I have no taste?) is Melita. I like almost all of them. I don't like DunkinDonuts because I just find it kind of weak.

A while ago we saw Chase and Sanbourne ( remember that one???) and it was good.

I mostly buy regular brands in the market- Melita, and often Chock Full Of Nuts.

Recently the store had a great sale on keurig pods of Martinson and I thought that was really good. I bought the dark which I liked but DH said was too strong. I also have the classic and we both like that a lot.