Coffee costs

I currently use Nespresso for my coffee hit but am considering a bean to cup machine when it conks out. Pods cost around 50p each so I was curious about the cost of beans for a shot of coffee although it’s not a main driver of the decision. I tend to like a strong roast and regularly like a “frothy coffee”. Also, do beans go stale if not used in a certain period of time?-I am the only coffee drinker in the house so consumption is fairly low, maximum of 3 cups per day.

Also, do beans go stale if not used in a certain period of time

Yes but not at the rate you need to concern yourself.

A bag of 250g from a good roaster costs about £10 and does 20 shots, so about 50p a shot.

(other assumptions are available)

Also, do beans go stale if not used in a certain period of time

Not so much ‘stale’, they just become ordinary

if you have a coffee with particular flavours beyond ‘coffee’ – some are quite dark and fruity for instance, some are quite caramel or chocolatey – those qualities are at their best when the beans are freshly roasted but those aromas are quite volatile and they are lost over time but what that leaves you with a basic’roasted coffee’ flavour which isn’t necessarily bad coffee, it’s just less distinctive coffee.

The reason to chose the various ‘local’ small batch, artitsan or whatever beans to have those distinctive tastes over supermarket / big brands that by nature of their distribute sit of the shelves longer and more neutral as a result.

When I’ve bought beans I’ve not liked I just leave them be for a while and they just became ‘ok coffee’ rather than coffee that I don’t like.

But at 3 cups a day a bag of coffee isn’t going to hang around long enough for that to be any worry really – a bag will last you about a week

A bag of 250g from a good roaster costs about £10

Be aware of shrinkflation in your calculations though though – some brands bags have quietly downsized to 220g

A bag of 250g from a good roaster costs about £10 and does 20 shots, so about 50p a shot.

Or you can buy 1kg of something like lavazza for little more than that in sales.

How much you spend on beans is really up to you.

Fresh roasted beans 200g for £4.50 Modern Standard Coffee only roasted a couple of miles away in Glenrothes and bought at that price from Morrisons

I reckon my Gaggia flat whites as good as any of the £3.75 with a fancy drawing on top

I just give it a squiggle

Or you can buy 1kg of something like lavazza for little more than that in sales.

Be as well with nescafe. Never understood the hype for lavazza it doesn’t even make average at best.

Would rather have Taylors brasilla  if I was sticking to the supermarket. It’s a similar price in bulk.

As is I use rave on a subscription for 9.50 /200gram delivered. Would be less if I bought in bulk but doesn’t then fit through the letter box.

Beans go stale, but nowhere near as fast as ground goes stale. So if you can grind yourself then a bag of beans should be absolutely fine for the timescales you’re on about.

In my machine I mostly use 18g of beans per shot. I use a handful of local roasters paying between £7-10 a 250g bag.  If you buy a kilo at a time that comes down to around £22-30/kg so roughly 43p a shot give or take.  That is for a double espresso shot, you could use 9g for a single and halve the price.

As said above, coffee doesn’t really ‘go off’ from a food safely perspective, but the difference in flavour between fresh and stale coffee is night and day.  A measure of how fresh a coffee is, is whether or not it has a roast date on the bag.  Supermarket coffee doesn’t, it just has a ”best before” date because they really don’t want you to know how old it is. They treat it as a commodity and not a fresh product – it’s usually months and sometimes over a year old.

That’s OK if you like a generic, muted, roast flavour but not if you’re looking for more complex origin flavours. Buy from an online speciality coffee supplier or a local roaster and the roast date will be on the bag because they are proud of how fresh it is. It’s usually just a few days before you buy it. It will be bursting with flavour and aroma in a way that supermarket commodity coffee never can be.

We’ve been using cheap supermarket beans for quite a long time now but thanks to the Rave recommendations I just logged into my account and discovered I had £25 worth of rewards! Awesome!

Looking forward to some nice coffee flavours! Other posters are right, the 1kg bags from the supermarket are just okay coffee, just coffee, none of the intense flavours you’ll get from a coffee shop who also specialise in roasting coffee.

The Asda Extra Special columbian beans we bought yesterday were better than I expected.

At a local roastery/coffee shop a single coffee from is £2.90. Their KG bags start around the £29 mark which is more than I’d like.

I went from STW to email and my local roaster has randomly sent me a link to this in their latest mail out

https://www.redber.co.uk/blogs/guides/7715279-storing-your-coffee

I should clarify. I just checked it’s 9.50/250grams. Bangin cheaper than I thought.

It’s also worth mentioning that once you open the door to homemade espresso, it’s a deeply and costly rabbit hole!

Many a man spent 5k+ on their home setup rather than go to therapy 😂

consumption is fairly low, maximum of 3 cups per day.

Am I the only one here surprised that 3 cups a day is considered low consumption? How many cups a day do you average drinkers consume?

When we were all working from home I was taking a family cafetiere to my.office in the morning and again I’m the afternoon due to many many boring and pointless meetings that would have been conversations.

 Rather unsurprisingly I identified that wasn’t sustainable nor healthy.

Now it’s

Espresso first thing.

At work Cup from aeropress at 10am and 2pm.

On days off home similar but likely a milky coffee – cortado of flat white depending on how long I have before I need to be somewhere. But I do try and limit my self to three.

On a normal day 2 full fat double espressos in the morning, one as straight espresso, one as a cappuccino.  I always have decaf beans around so sometimes I’ll also have a decaff espresso or Americano in the afternoon.  Although I love it, I’m much more aware of the way caffeine affects me these days. A few years ago during a stressy time at work, I was drinking 7 or 8 a day and well into the late afternoon. Funny old thing, but I had terrible sleep, jitters and anxiety!  I’m retired now.  I’ve gone from drinking loads of mediocre coffee and barely enjoying it, to just two a day of top notch stuff and really savouring every mouthful.

do beans go stale if not used in a certain period of time

You know how organs get packed in a chill box and then transported with a police escort to ensure there’s not a moment’s delay? Well that’s how my Rwandan Robusto gets delivered at six hour intervals to ensure maximum freshness

High functioning addicts 😂

Stopped at National Trust cafe at Hindhead to refuel this morning, £8.50 for coffee and a sausage roll

Coffee beans can be placed in the freezer, or if the bag is open in the fridge.    For pods, get the Amazon ones, they are decent enough and about £10 for 100.

Just wait for Italian week @ lidl….

I use a local roaster here in Edinburgh (Artisan Roast) and it’s about £23/25 a kilo for their house blend and their decaf which is excellent.

Lidl do £7.99 1kg bags that make a good coffee. Shrinkflation there as well… used to be 1.2kg for the that price.

Lavazza Crema e Aroma is about £12 for a 1kg. Also makes a great daily coffee.

Nothing like instant, unless you’re being really hamfisted with your coffee making.

Using a local roaster is great, you are in most cases going to get a more interesting drink, with deeper flavor… but cost wise it’s small marginal gains. Please do it if you can afford it, these roasters need regulars to survive. But a good regular drink can still be made with more affordable beans.

Thanks all, that sounds promising. So what about bean to cup machines, do  they make acceptable coffee considering I’m not really interested in being a barista but just want a good consistent cup of coffee. Looking at the Delonghi Magnifica or Evo machines which have manual frothers rather than an automatic milk frother.

They can make a decent cup, decent beans make the biggest difference IMO

I’m going to horrify half the thread but suggesting I’m totally decaf only, pour over, don’t weigh it, and prefer Sainsbury’s own label decaf or Waitrose Columbian decaf…Often on offer at £3 a bag or so and I buy in bulk when it is to last a couple of months….
(3 per day here)

Nothing like instant, unless you’re being really hamfisted with your coffee making.

It’s not much like good coffee either . Worst of both worlds. Like when you get a coffee shop displaying a nice roasters logo…. And get a steaming hot cup of near boiling scalding coffee. A cup full of disappointment.

Taylor’s is available for 2-3 quid more per kilo at the larger supermarket at least doesn’t just taste of char and over roast.

The amount of extra packaging involved with Nespresso pods and the like is crazy.

Stopped at National Trust cafe at Hindhead to refuel this morning, £8.50 for coffee and a sausage roll

GF found a receipt from her last trip to Munich. A cappuccino and a herbal tea.

11€….!

4,50€ for the cappuccino, 5,50€ for a tea bag and some water!

Had two cappuccini and two brioche the other day here in Tuscany. 4,90€ total. I rounded it up to 5€.

I think beans do go off. If they look oily then the flavours have pretty much bled out

Can’t beat the smell of opening a bag of beans, and then grinding them mmm

How you make the coffee can affect the taste massively too. Dont scrimp on a machine just get a very expensive one 😀

I think beans do go off. If they look oily then the flavours have pretty much bled out

Oil on the surface of the beans is not down to how stale/fresh they are. It depends on the the roast level. The darker the roast, the more the natural coffee oils rise to the surface of the bean, even if they are freshly roasted. Some very darkly roasted beans are noticeably glossy from surface oils – straight out of the roaster.

Taylor’s is available for 2-3 quid more per kilo at the larger supermarket at least doesn’t just taste of char and over roast.

Yeah, I use the Taylors sometimes as well. If you’re talking about (subjectively) over roasted coffee, you’re probably thinking of the red or black bag stuff. Lavazza have many different roasts, most people will find one they like; not as much as something costing four times as much (I also go down that path) but it’s not shit just because you’ve had one you didn’t like.

Had two cappuccini and two brioche the other day here in Tuscany. 4,90€ total.

Italians know what’s important, and enshrine it in law.

@politecameraaction

You know how organs get packed in a chill box and then transported with a police escort to ensure there’s not a moment’s delay? Well that’s how my Rwandan Robusto gets delivered at six hour intervals to ensure maximum freshness.

So, the flights are not coming back empty then !!

Be as well with nescafe. Never understood the hype for lavazza it doesn’t even make average at best.

What tosh – why do people spout this sort of nonsense? Did they hear it once, then just repeat it again and again believing it must be true?

FWIW, I have been trying some different supermarket beans (my ‘usual’ bean is Whittard’s Guatemalan Elephant but I thought I’d try some others). The Aldi ‘Italian’ beans are okay, Illy are better, Cafe Nero similar to Illy, perhaps slightly punchier, Lavazza are the best so far, about on par with the Whittard beans.

Or maybe they just don’t like the flavour profiles?  I dislike Lavazza, and illy for that matter.

My go to daily is Union Revelation, which are around £15 in Sainsbury’s but often on offer, for 700g.  There’s no doubt ‘better’ coffee, but it suits my palette for now and I can drink it black as an aeropress through the Niche grinder or as a nice flat white/capp, it’s OK as espresso also.

12-14 euros for a kilo here for good coffee (I like Swedish roasters Arvid Norquist as well as Löfbergs). Though I buy pre-ground stuff – I take just a couple days worth into a glass jar, rest goes in the freezer wrapped tightly in the original packaging, so it stays fresh.

I made the mistake of trying cold brew coffee, and it was so god-damn good that now I can’t go without. I put a 700 ml french press in the fridge each evening, 6-7 flat scoops of coffee mixed well with the cold water, and press it 12 hours later in the morning.

The taste is deeper and stronger, much more vivid than with hot coffee. And will not cause any stomach distress, even if I drink more of it than would hot. There is no going back – the taste is so much better. If I knew, I’d been doing this for years already.

My opinion.

Save more by ditching the powered machines altogether and go with v60. It’s worth a go as the initial investment is so cheap. Just a plastic v60 and some papers.

Later you can get some scales and a good grinder, still much cheaper than a powered thing and takes up far less space.

A brew takes a few minutes but I enjoy that time rather than fight it

I bet on the Venn diagram of people who weigh their coffee beans and people who buy directional speaker cable there is a LOT of overlap 😉