# Supermarket Coffee?



## NorvernAdam (Mar 13, 2013)

I was just wondering, obviously I'm new to the whole coffee bean scene but I was just wondering whether you can actually buy whole bean from supermarket chains and also what is wrong with store-bought coffee? I don't buy it I was just curious as to why not?


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## Godders (Dec 29, 2012)

Age (as in time passed since roasting) and bean quality are the reasons supermarket beans are likely to be average at best.

It varies depending on the bean (and who you ask) but coffee beans are only good for a few weeks after roasting, supermarket beans are likely to be much older than a few weeks.


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## thomss (May 9, 2011)

Ya, if you see a best before rather than a roast date pretty much forget it.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

I have good results with Waitrose beans, tend to be a darker roast, Lavazza medium roast (black bag), there's the tins of Illy (both Lavazza & Illy are "preserved"), Cafe Direct (Peru) beans can be great if not too far gone, Taylors of Harrogate Kenya too...in fact at £2 or £3 a bag it's always worth a punt...what's the worst that can happen?

It is certainly safer to buy beans from a dedicated roaster, who roasts & despatches within a few days.


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## Nimble Motionists (Oct 22, 2012)

This thread is pretty helpful in working out how fresh a bag of Supermarket beans is from the use by date http://coffeeforums.co.uk/showthread.php?8787-Union-beans-supplied-to-Waitrose-I-have-the-access-codes-to-the-Zion-mainframe

Using this method I got some half-decent Taylors and Cafe Direct beans when I ran out over the Christmas period. I try to avoid supermarket for espresso as its hard to get a decent pour with them but I used to enjoy Taylors' Lazy Sunday as filter before I got into the speciality coffee thing.


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## Big Tony (Dec 18, 2012)

I think beans are in date for approx 12 months from the roast date so look at the best before to work out how fresh they are. If I bought a bag this month which had a best before which was 11 months later, I'd be thinking they were pretty good to go.


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## tcr4x4 (Jan 2, 2013)

thomss said:


> Ya, if you see a best before rather than a roast date pretty much forget it.
> 
> Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 2


The beans I bought in the RAVE coffee roasters yesterday only have a best before date, so that's not conclusive!


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## Steve_S_T (Dec 7, 2012)

As Shaun informs us in the thread that Nimble Motionist links to in post #5, we can be entirely accurate on the roast date by reading the four digit code on the pack - i.e in the code 3012, 3 is the last digit of the year, so 2013 and 012 is the 12th day, so they were roasted 12the january this year. Since reading that post I often find myself looking through supermarket beans just to see when they were roasted with no intention of buying (although if I was in Waitrose and found some Union beans with a 3110 code or similar I'd probably grab them as that indicates they are very recently roasted).

Steve.


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## chimpsinties (Jun 13, 2011)

I have no idea why Rave put a BBD on their beans. I think it detracts from the reputation a bit. I know they're fresh roasted so why not show it off.

I just got some Rave (1kg of Italian Job) from Amazon for £9 (+£2.70 P&P) so for that price you may as well buy fresh from a proper roaster.

If you're really stuck then I can highly recommend Morissons Sweet Rich Columbian. It's the best super market muck I've ever tasted and it's what I'll go for if I run out of proper fresh roasted.


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## painty (Jul 25, 2011)

I tried to obtain information from Whittards once about their roast date vs. BBE date. Their customer services declined to give a straight answer to a straight question and just said the beans have a two-week BB life from point of sale <shrug></shrug>


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## MrDecaf (Apr 1, 2013)

With fear of being roasted... I've given Asda's two quid 'Chosen by you' beans a go and they make acceptable Starbucks like coffee that non-selective folk think tastes good. Cheap enough to experiment with, a reasonable flavour and small enough quantities to get through before going stale (Unlike the 900g Costco bags...) I'm using them to iron out issues of storage and technique (Heck, if you can make coffee this cheap taste ok then you're doing something right ;-)


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## The Systemic Kid (Nov 23, 2012)

painty said:


> I tried to obtain information from Whittards once about their roast date vs. BBE date. Their customer services declined to give a straight answer to a straight question and just said the beans have a two-week BB life from point of sale <shrug></shrug>


That's interesting. I used to buy Monsooned Malabar from Whittards (yes, I have now seen the light) in 1 kg bags. The bag had a 'best by' date on it which, if memory serves me well, was about six months from purchase date. Could Whittard's customer service be being a bit economical with the truth here??


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## painty (Jul 25, 2011)

The Systemic Kid said:


> That's interesting. I used to buy Monsooned Malabar from Whittards (yes, I have now seen the light) in 1 kg bags. The bag had a 'best by' date on it which, if memory serves me well, was about six months from purchase date. Could Whittard's customer service be being a bit economical with the truth here??


I got conflicting information between the shop and the online customer services so I wonder if local practises dictated this, as your example would indicate. I just checked back to see what they wrote... I asked them: a) what would be the maximum time between roasting and beans being sold; and b) was there a hard time limit for beans being thrown out. What I got back was



> The shelf life of the coffee depends on whether you buy beans or if you get the coffee ground in the store. The beans keep fresh for a month or you can freeze them for up to three months and grind them straight from the freezer. The fresh ground coffee, we give a best before end of fourteen days. Just to inform you that these are both best before end dates, this is the length of time we give before the coffee starts to loose it's fresh taste.


This at the back end of 2005 though, so they may well have moved with the times by now!


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## Dylan (Dec 5, 2011)

I started off on supermarket beans, switching to fresh roast was almost as big of a difference as grinding before extraction. I had only ever bought the Asda special brand ones and I think some lavazza beans. I did get decent results from beans bought from starbucks.


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## Rod Norman (Jan 21, 2018)

My current 'supermarket muck' is Sainsbury's Taste The Difference Columbian blend, flavour strength '3'. I got bought a little DeLonghi grinder for Christmas.

Anyway, finally my taste buds are returning after seemingly endless sinuses, and post Flu business...


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## espressotechno (Apr 11, 2011)

Emergency purchase of Taylors Italian Blend beans from Asda. Good extraction, good crema, quite tasty & rich espresso.

Made a good cappuccino as well.


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## The Asgard (Aug 1, 2017)

espressotechno said:


> Emergency purchase of Taylors Italian Blend beans from Asda. Good extraction, good crema, quite tasty & rich espresso.
> 
> Made a good cappuccino as well.


Taylors Java Jemba are highly recommended in 2x 1Kg bags for around £22 sometimes cheap £18 on Amazon. Lazy Sunday are also pretty good.


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