These supermarket coffee beans beat the rest hands down – and they’re a bargain
We’ve woken up and smelt the coffee – the real coffee – and we aren’t looking back. Gone are the days when a mug of Nescafé would have been the norm even in some coffee shops. In the 90s I worked in a pub where the landlady thought nothing of filling up the bulbous glass coffee pot with instant, before sticking it back on the filter machine. No one commented.
These days it’s all about beans, ground beans and pods. Espresso, and its family of cappuccino, flat white and latte, have entered the mainstream. Coffee nerds have had to move to higher ground to demonstrate their superiority: Chemex, pour over and siphon are the new buzz words.
But regardless of how you make yours, the beans count. Supermarkets stock shelves of varieties, promising flavours from cherry to chocolate, earthy to floral, and at price points from a couple of quid for a 227g bag to the equivalent of over four times that. The cost of a cup of black coffee ranges from an everyday 12p, to a far more spendy 50p. Is it worth shelling out for the top end? I gathered samples from the big retailers to find out.
Tasting coffee is a specialist business, involving lengthy training, so I enlisted the help of Alex Zeal of top-end Extract Coffee Roasters. Zeal is an experienced coffee judge, and Extract doesn’t sell into the supermarkets, so there’s no conflict of interest.
In fact, supermarket coffee is usually a lower grade than that sold by specialist importers. The best coffee is singled out as “speciality” and is awarded a grade above 80 out of 100 in tastings by the Speciality Coffee Association. Most supermarket coffee has not reached this bar, although in the last couple of years a few speciality roasters like Union have started to sell through supermarkets.
The full definition of speciality coffee is hard to pin down, and harder to quantify, but the SCA says it promotes ethical practices, high levels of expertise and fair prices along the coffee chain from grower through to buyer, roaster to coffee shop. In terms of drinking, it’s likely to be complex flavoured, and have a high acidity that’s much prized by coffee-heads.
Zeal arrived on my doorstep with a huge coffee grinder, as well as glasses for brewing up and what looked like child-size soup spoons to slurp the coffee from. This was clearly going to be a proper coffee tasting, or “cupping” as it’s known in the trade.
With dozens of varieties available, we decided to stick to whole coffee beans for this tasting; the flavour is improved by grinding fresh (pre-ground coffee loses its aroma and stales very fast). 10.5g was weighed out from each of the 25 coffees (plus a double of one, to keep us on our toes) and labelled from A-Z. No cheating, no peeking: we had no idea what brand we were tasting.
Before grinding, Zeal sniffed and shook the different beans. “This one is badly graded – look at all the different sizes. And this one, ebony dark and shiny – when you roast very dark the oils escape.” Roasting very dark is a good way to mask faults and inconsistencies, he explained, but it also ruins any complexity or delicate flavour nuances. “This one has damaged, broken beans, and there’s a lot of tipping – it’s like when you rip a piece of bread and toast it, the edges burn. Same with beans, and it gives a kind of ashy flavour.” It wasn’t all bad though. Zeal picked out a pale teak-coloured batch, with a matte finish. “These are good, and a uniform size too.”
Zeal ground each coffee in his sleek grinder and tipped them into glasses, then topped up with just-off-boiling water. 15ml of water to each gram of coffee is the optimum for tasting, apparently. They were left for four minutes, by which time the grounds had risen to form a thick crust on the top of the coffee. Next came “knocking” through the crust, essentially sticking in a spoon so that the grounds sank slowly to the bottom of the glass, leaving the coffee clear.
Time to taste. We armed ourselves with diminutive soup spoons and slurped up the coffee. At least Zeal did, making an impressive noise as he sucked in air as well as liquid, ensuring the aromas from the coffee flowed up the back of his throat to the nasal cavity, so he could get the most flavour from the coffee.
And wow, were there a lot of flavours. Take acid – turns out that it isn’t just sour, but malic (apple-y) sour, citric sour, tartaric (wine sour) and acetic (vinegar) sour. We descended down a rabbit hole of descriptors, some good, like cherry, caramel, savoury, some less so – rubbery, tannic, medicinal, burnt. Vegetal isn’t generally a good thing but we agreed that a scent of sage can be appealing.
The best ones earned an approving nod from Zeal. There’s great coffee out there on the supermarket aisles. But those oily black beans? Starbucks, I’m looking at you. “Burning tyres, like licking an ashtray,” say my tasting notes, “not even my old landlady would have tolerated those”.
The taste test
Starbucks Espresso Roast Dark Roast Whole Bean Coffee
£10 for 450g at Tesco (£2.22/100g)
Shinier, darker, glossier than any of the others on test. Oh boy, that tastes like throwing an old car tyre on a fire and breathing in. Gnarly. At least it’s distinctive. Zero stars.
Ocado Italian Blend Roasted Coffee Beans
£3 for 227g (£1.32/100g)
Dark beans that aren’t a uniform size, and many are broken, which make an overwhelmingly smokey brew with a medicinal quality and no sweetness. Vending-machine stuff.
Lidl Bellarom Coffee Beans
£3.99 for 454g (87p/100g)
Rock bottom price, but sadly harsh and earthy with a lingering saltiness that makes your mouth pucker up. There’s an ashy, burnt flavour too.
Ueshima Coffee Company House Blend Rich Roast Coffee Beans
£4.25 for 250g at Sainsbury’s (£1.70/100g)
Flat tasting, despite some acidity. There’s a hollow dustiness to it, like it’s been stored too long.
Tesco House Blend Coffee Beans
£3 for 227g (£1.32/100g)
These taste badly roasted, with some tipping. The coffee is drying but not overly roasty; add milk and it might be saved.
Morrisons Italian Style Coffee Beans
£2.99 for 227g (£1.32/100g)
Tastes, sadly, like bitter hospital coffee. It’s ashy at the end. But it’s an even roast that mellows somewhat as it cools.
Costa Coffee Mocha Italia Signature Blend Coffee Beans
£4 for 200g at Asda (£2/100g)
Like Italian cafe coffee. Has some cocoa characteristics and a little bit of spicing, a touch of black treacle, but otherwise ashy and bitter.
Lavazza Qualita Rossa Roast & Ground Coffee Beans
£4.75 for 250g at Morrisons (£1.90/100g)
Delivers a bit of chocolatey-ness but burntness too, which gets worse as it cools. Flat, one dimensional and dull.
Sainsbury’s Fairtrade House Blend Original Coffee Beans Strength Three
£2.80 for 227g (£1.23/100g)
Very nutty, with a quickly dissipating sweetness and hints of black pepper. Not much balancing acidity though.
Aldi Alcafé House Blend Arabica Beans
£1.99 for 227g (88p/100g)
A dark roast that’s ashy and earthy, with low sweetness and a mouth drying quality. It’s a bit dull.
Waitrose Colombian Coffee Beans
£3.75 for 227g (£1.66/100g)
Has a baked flavour with a very short finish. As it cools, however, it gains sweetness and body
Aldi Velo Specially Selected Tandem Whole Bean Coffee
£3.09 for 200g (£1.55/100g)
Looks much lighter than the others and has a malty, vegetal, cereal flavour. It’s gentle, like milk chocolate, but has no length.
Asda Italian Style Roasted Coffee Beans
£4.50 for 454g (99p/100g)
This is very oily, but has a toasty and lingering bitter finish. It’s a little bit chocolatey, too, but overall quite average.
Tesco Finest Morning Ritual Coffee Beans
£3.90 for 227g (£1.72/100g)
Tastes like high-percentage cocoa chocolate, with some sweetness, but very low body. A one-dimensional brew.
M&S Fairtrade Italian Style Coffee Beans
£3.25 for 227g at Ocado (£1.43/100g)
With a balance of sweetness and acidity, some maltiness as well, this won’t scare the horses. If you like a dark coffee this is a good one, but the character of the bean is lost in the heavy roast.
Asda Extra Special Colombian Fairtrade Coffee Beans
£3.50 for 227g (£1.54/100g)
Oh wow. There’s a spiciness here and a caramel sweetness. Picking up creamy cashew nuts, plus red fruit and an appley acidity without being sharp. Not for everyone but it does have personality. One for lovers of a really fruity coffee.
Waitrose No.1 Sumatra Mandheling Coffee Beans
£4 for 227g (£1.77/100g)
Reminiscent of chocolate nuts, with a little bit of sweetness and a slightly drying finish. The flavour is a bit like chewing on a bit of bark, but the background sweetness balances it well.
Morrisons The Best Colombian Coffee Beans
£3.89 for 227g (£1.71/100g)
There’s a sweetness to this with hints of lemon curd. It’s got real character, with a gentle end and it doesn’t taste over roasted.
Sainsbury’s Taste the Difference Fairtrade Kenyan Coffee Beans
£3.90 for 227g (£1.72/100g)
A medium roast with flavours of nuts, cocoa nibs and hints of coconut. Plenty of tartaric acidity but barely any bitterness, meaning even latte lovers may enjoy this black.
M&S Fairtrade Colombian Coffee Beans
£4.25 for 227g at Ocado (£1.87/100g)
Delivers acidity and a hint of green bell pepper; it’s not as heavily over-roasted as others and has a pleasant sweetness. Milder in flavour than some so a good one to drink black, as it’s not too bitter.
Co-op Irresistible Fairtrade Kenyan Coffee Beans
£3.60 for 227g (£1.59/100g)
Our favourite of the lot, and a relative bargain. A darkish roast, but still retaining some fruitiness and sweetness, and a balanced acidity. Night and day compared to some of the other coffees.
