# Spoiled by Lidl? Tesco blows my mind



## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

As a person of the broke persuasion, I've been drinking a lot of Lidl's coffee, usually the Columbian Supremo or their Italian blend. Their beans have been reasonably easy to get dialed in enough for my usage. But I was running low, and Tesco was open and nearby, Lidl was neither. So I picked up a bag of their "house blend" which is allegedly a medium roast. Bag had a best before date in the middle of next year, so I think to myself it can't be that ancient...

First issue: Black and oily beans... in a medium roast? Wait... what?? Yep..

Next issue: Pucks don't hold together and leave bits stuck to the portafilter basket... Well that makes cleaning up harder work... yay

Taste was... meh... and my instinctive reaction to seeing dark ebon beans was to go coarse on the grind, which was wrong.

Not buying them again. I'm going back to the nicer quality beans at Lidl (or possibly Aldi, had some decent enough beans from them too).


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## Jacko112 (Oct 29, 2015)

Try Union's offering which are now sold at Sainsburys- they'll be far better


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## Zeak (Jun 12, 2017)

Convenience aside, are they significantly cheaper than, say, house blends from small roasteries (i.e. Rave - £5, Baytown - £4.95)?

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

At half the price of either of the options you give Zeak, yes. When my income improves at some nebulous point in the future, I really hope to progress to small roasters. Plus I'm not sure my skills would yet do them justice.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

allikat said:


> At half the price of either of the options you give Zeak, yes. When my income improves at some nebulous point in the future, I really hope to progress to small roasters. Plus I'm not sure my skills would yet do them justice.


 James Gourmet..

btw hat kit are you using to make coffee with?


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

Mrboots2u said:


> James Gourmet..
> 
> btw hat kit are you using to make coffee with?


 A nearly 20 year old Gaggia Baby that I refurbished, and a 16 year old Compak K6 the same. Both rescued from ebay.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

allikat said:


> A nearly 20 year old Gaggia Baby that I refurbished, and a 16 year old Compak K6 the same. Both rescued from ebay.


 Good enough kit to deserve good enough beans


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

Very true. When this situation is over, I hope to be able to budget enough to get an odd bag of something better than my usual as a treat. Hopefully I'll be getting good at dialing in by then.


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

allikat said:


> Very true. When this situation is over, I hope to be able to budget enough to get an odd bag of something better than my usual as a treat. Hopefully I'll be getting good at dialing in by then.


 James Gourmet  5 to 6 quid a bag uber cheap postage , very tasty coffee.


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## SDM (Apr 1, 2020)

allikat said:


> At half the price of either of the options you give Zeak, yes. When my income improves at some nebulous point in the future, I really hope to progress to small roasters. Plus I'm not sure my skills would yet do them justice.


 If you can stretch to buying in slightly larger quantities and freezing some, you can get a kilo of espresso blend or Italian job from Rave for £16. Sign up to their newsletter and you get 15% off and they do free delivery if you spend £25. Works out at £13.60/kg, just 23% more expensive than the £10.97 you pay at Lidl.

It costs more initially, which I appreciate isn't something some people can afford right now, but it isn't significantly more in the long run and I expect your results would be a lot better.


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## Jacko112 (Oct 29, 2015)

Aren't there some decent beans going spare to one of us that's on harder times? Couldn't find them when I searched.

Might help the OP?


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## 24774 (Mar 8, 2020)

Jacko112 said:


> Aren't there some decent beans going spare to one of us that's on harder times? Couldn't find them when I searched.
> 
> Might help the OP?


 That was me on the 'Pay It Forward' section, someone struggling a bit asked me for them so I sent them.


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## Zeak (Jun 12, 2017)

CocoLoco said:


> That was me on the 'Pay It Forward' section, someone struggling a bit asked me for them so I sent them.


 Also, as an option, J. Hoffman is giving away 10 bags (I believe) after every video.


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## John Yossarian (Feb 2, 2016)

allikat said:


> At half the price of either of the options you give Zeak, yes. When my income improves at some nebulous point in the future, I really hope to progress to small roasters. Plus I'm not sure my skills would yet do them justice.


 Have you come across their 1 kg bag ItaliaMo? It is quite cheap, if I remember correctly £9.99. I bought one for seasoning my grinder new burrs but it turned out to be quite good coffee. Quite a bit of robusta in it but the taste was very good. My wife's comment was quite positive and she is hard to please when it comes to coffee 🙂.

The issue is they do not always have it and if they did, they never place it next to the rest of the coffee beans.


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## 24774 (Mar 8, 2020)

Zeak said:


> Also, as an option, J. Hoffman is giving away 10 bags (I believe) after every video.


 @winterlight had the good idea of starting a 'coffee fund' somehow for those that are finding things a bit difficult right now. Didn't get much support unfortunately. I thought about setting up a JustGiving for people on the forum to donate to and I'd admin it, send out free coffee to those post on the forum page or DM me, not everyone would be OK with doing it publicly (probably from Origin, cheap and free delivery, even for one bag), but it's hard to regulate, there's obviously people that would be good recipients, but others might just be chancers trying to get free stuff. Also, not sure how much interest it would garner, Winterlight's original post got 3 replies.


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## Skizz (Feb 10, 2020)

> allikat said:
> 
> 
> > Very true. When this situation is over, I hope to be able to budget enough to get an odd bag of something better than my usual as a treat. Hopefully I'll be getting good at dialing in by then.


 I used to (and probably should be again) on a 1x good independent and 1x okayish supermarket bag a month ration. To be fair, I was only drinking one Aeropress brew a day with the occasional pour-over on weekends. This was when Sainsburys still did their Tanzanian 'Moshi Community' peaberry, which was genuinely very good at £3.50 a bag if you managed to get fresher stuff. I really miss it as still not found a supermarket bean anywhere near as good at any price, not even from Union or Modern Standard.

Think they binned it when the producers wouldn't sell for what JS's buyers were offering, which is fair enough as buyers for major-mults are generally absolute barstewards. Was about the time JS wanted out of the FairTrade scheme (which they co-founded) and tried replacing it with their own 'Fairly Traded' alternative window-dressing, which probably had something to do with it.

That said, a friend brewed a cafetiere last year that was surprisingly good and turned out to be a Lidl bean. Which, I'm yet to find again as I've tried everything available in our local branch and it all tastes like burnt carpet to me. Then again, I'm not sure I've ever made a cafetiere brew that I actually liked the taste of, even when others did. Um, if I had a point I fear it got lost somewhere amidst the above rambling... sorry.


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## -Mac (Aug 22, 2019)

allikat said:


> As a person of the broke persuasion, I've been drinking a lot of Lidl's coffee, usually the Columbian Supremo or their Italian blend. Their beans have been reasonably easy to get dialed in enough for my usage. But I was running low, and Tesco was open and nearby, Lidl was neither. So I picked up a bag of their "house blend" which is allegedly a medium roast. Bag had a best before date in the middle of next year, so I think to myself it can't be that ancient...
> 
> First issue: Black and oily beans... in a medium roast? Wait... what?? Yep..
> 
> ...


 Have you tried watching James Hoffman's recent videos on YouTube? He's giving away bags of good beans to coffee lovers in need.


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## winterlight (Feb 27, 2016)

CocoLoco said:


> @winterlight had the good idea of starting a 'coffee fund' somehow for those that are finding things a bit difficult right now. Didn't get much support unfortunately. I thought about setting up a JustGiving for people on the forum to donate to and I'd admin it, send out free coffee to those post on the forum page or DM me, not everyone would be OK with doing it publicly (probably from Origin, cheap and free delivery, even for one bag), but it's hard to regulate, there's obviously people that would be good recipients, but others might just be chancers trying to get free stuff. Also, not sure how much interest it would garner, Winterlight's original post got 3 replies.


 @CocoLoco Still happy to get involved with this if there's any further developments, PM me if anything changes.


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## allikat (Jan 27, 2020)

-Mac said:


> Have you tried watching James Hoffman's recent videos on YouTube? He's giving away bags of good beans to coffee lovers in need.


 Yes, but he also has about a billion viewers and ten bags don't go far amongst that lot.


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## Jamïe Edgar Llöyd (10 mo ago)

SDM said:


> If you can stretch to buying in slightly larger quantities and freezing some, you can get a kilo of espresso blend or Italian job from Rave for £16. Sign up to their newsletter and you get 15% off and they do free delivery if you spend £25. Works out at £13.60/kg, just 23% more expensive than the £10.97 you pay at Lidl.
> 
> It costs more initially, which I appreciate isn't something some people can afford right now, but it isn't significantly more in the long run and I expect your results would be a lot better.


As of this morning, I can tell you that both varieties of Bellarom were priced £1.49 for a 200g bag, which would come to just £7.45 per kilo


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## Dogandhatlove (10 mo ago)

In our sub we sell the older coffee from the month before sub off at £12.99 - It is two bags of speciality that is 4-8 weeks old, we have around 20 sets a month, its a good way to try smaller roasters and a good price, we don't always have them, but they are in from time to time if it help anyone. 

Bag Shop – Dog & Hat Coffee (dogandhat.co.uk)


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## thesmileyone (Sep 27, 2016)

Union Natural Spirit is my favourite coffee except for the DSOL Sheffield pick I had from here once which tested like cherries.


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