Malesherbes

OK...this is stretching as a travel thread, I know, but all you travelers have invaluable advise, and I need help!

Last weekend we bought a Jura-Capresso "coffee center" at Williams Sonoma. Oh the coffee...like being in Paris, but at home! While we were there, we bought a can of Illy beans to use with it...sort of extravagant but gosh was it good. We ran out of beans in one week! Our normal Starbucks beans used this morning tasted awful in comparison.

Does anyone have recommendations for beans that'll give us that Paris taste, or just great taste, but without the Illy price tag?

Loki

The best taste would be either buying from a local roaster or buying green beans and roasting them yourself.

If I have to buy something through the mail pre-roasted, I buy from http://portorico.com/. Peter's Blend is a good start if you're not 100% sure what types of roast you like.

If you post what metro area you live near, I might be able to point you toward a local roaster.

Also, what kind of roasts do you like?

Gretchen

Buy the Kirkland brand Starbucks at Costco and grind it fine.

sylvia3

Get the absolute darkest roast your local store has (most now have organic if you prefer)and grind very well when you make the coffee. Keep the beans in the fridge until ready to use. Make sure you have a good filter.

Malesherbes

Hi..and Thank You! We are in San Antonio. I never thought of buying green and roasting them myself--haven't seen them for sale that way, but then, haven't looked before either. We have a Whole Foods as well as a specialty local market which may carry them.

With our old pot, which died after I broke down and ran a potload of vinegar through it, we were using Starbucks Verona, pre-ground. With the new maker, you select the size cup you want and strength, from mild to normal to espresso, then it grinds the beans and makes one cup. After running out of Illy this morning, I used a bag of Starbucks espresso beans that had been in the freezer (and defrosted). It was really disappointing...I don't know if it was the difference in the bean or if they'd been in the freezer too long or what, but it really wasn't good--sort of blah. Maybe it needs to be ground finer than the pre-set on the grinder portion of the pot, which is adjustable...but that was perfect for the Illy, too.

For lack of other ideas, I googled Illy and found a location here where they were on sale today, but still, $12/8 oz can, almost double Starbucks Verona, so I'd really love to find something as good, but not quite that expensive.

I'm looking for that nice strong flavor you might find in a Paris cafe...ahhh. Illy was as close as we've come.

bardo1

Roast your own. Actually it will be better than any coffee in Paris, Rome or anywhere else. Beans are hard to find, most people order the green cooffee beans over the internet.

Here's a few roasters to look at:

http://coffeetea.about.com/cs/roasting/tp/roasters.htm

sylvia3

Freezer beans get stale, alas. Roasting them yourself is time consuming (and very smelly but that can be a good thing); I still say buy the freshest dark beans you can and grind them before every pot! Unless you've become a total coffee weirdo (not that there's anything wrong with that...)

mlgb

Peets.com for mail order.

Gretchen

Costco.Starbucks. Kirkland. Fine grind. Give it a try.

trippinkpj

San Francisco Bay Organic Coffee Beans (Columbian) at Costco. 3 lbs. for $11 ish in North CA. A step up from the Kirkland beans, which are still decent. I use a Melitta Drip, the old fashioned manual way. I like the way the coffee comes out better than with a coffee maker.

trippinkpj

Oh sorry, my Columbian coffee beans probably won't taste like Paris, LOL.

tovarich

I can understand the problem Americans have to get good coffee.What I cannot understand is the fact that the American coffeebean manufacturers dont do something about it. THe Starbucks success should given them some idea.Here in Belgium we can get the beans from any producing country in the world and have great roasters.I personnally prefer the Costa Rica bean for its mild taste.Greetings from Belgium.Paul

grantop

I usually order our beans from Zabars, here is a link: http://tinyurl.com/zbu9e

Malesherbes

I've just been reading about roasting your own, thanks for the links. It sounds like a science....one crack good, two cracks maybe too much.. etc. Intriguing, but is it complicated getting it "right". And what about the smoke they are talking about? A little? A lot? How long can green beans be stored?

Gretchen

Unroasted they keep for years. We visited the Cafe Britt plantation in Costa Rica.

eyeski

Luckily, San Antonio now has an excellent microroaster, Wildfire Coffee on Huebner between NW Military and Bitters. I get a pound of their espresso blend a week. They put the roast date on the bag, beans are never more than a week old.

David

christy1

I'd ask this question on the "coffee" forum at egullet. There are certainly many terrific roasters in the US these days, but the egullet forum will probably help you get that "Paris" taste you want.

http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showforum=127

Malesherbes

What an incredible website Christy1! I've been lost in it for a couple hours and am just getting started, plus it's led to two others, also excellent!

From green beans and roasters to brewing techniques--it's a whole new world to explore. Wish I'd had the website now before buying, although with the stage we are at, we'd probably have ended up with the same machine. It is complicated enough for me, and they can get far more complex than I'd ever imagined! Heck, what we are coming from is a Krupp's with a glass carafe and hot plate...tsk tsk. LOL, so this is a quantum leap for us!

Again, thanks so much for the responses...terrific information. In my quest for excellent beans locally I will try Wildfire Coffee eyeski, thank you.

Anyone else even vaguely interested in great coffee, take a look at Christy1's website. It is a wealth of information.

Loki

Also, there's a lot to read at coffeegeek.com. Please post a review of Wildfire somewhere (here, egullet or coffeegeek), I might stop in the next time I'm travelling through San Antonio if it's worth the diversion (good coffee always is!)

mikemo

I really think Gretchen is correct:
We get lots of different MX organic, shade grown, often single plot, roasted beans from Chiapas, Oaxaca, and Vera Cruz at Costco here in Central MX for about $7.US a kg (2.2lbs).
I was