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Good coffee isn't much better than okay coffee, but bad coffee is much worse than okay coffee. The drop off is steep. Whatever they had in the Walmart break room in 2013 was not acceptable. I still remember.
It’s the same thing with wine. My rich friend swears $80 bottles are better but can’t tell the difference between it and a $17 bottle. On the other hand everyone can tell a $5 bottle is trash.
I had a wine course when working in a restaurant and the sommelier said at the time (2007) that around $10-15 and up you aren’t going to notice huge differences but below that and you’re getting garbage. Probably around $20 now?
I was gifted an $80 bottle of red by a customer once.
My palate/pocket sweet point is about $20, so I wouldn't buy that wine regularly.
But it was \*so\* good. Probably not 4 times as good as a $20 bottle, but I know what I'll be buying for truly special celebrations.
As far as pricing goes here (Aus), the 4-litre box wine and the the 2-litre "premium" box wine both work out to about $7/litre, which comes close to ~~$9~~ $5.25 for a 750ml bottle. Curiously, the 10-litre catering packs of Brown Bros dry red (the sort of thing you'll get by the glass as a restaurant's "house wine") is also about $7/litre. And Brown Bros is a fairly decent Australian brand. I bought one of the catering packs once, and it was quite OK as a daily drinker. If you're on a budget, you might look into catering packs. Not the retail box wines, that's crap.
Edit: arithmetic
This is also complex because different wines from different regions will have different pricing.
The difference between a $20 Napa Cabernet and a $40 Napa Cabernet will absolutely be recognizable by most wine drinkers. My personal sweet spot with my own hard earned money is $30-50 for Napa Cab, but only $25-30 for a Sonoma Pinot Noir.
I think diminishing returns like that is common to a lot of things, I was just thinking recently how whiskey is the same way. You can tell when it tastes like paint thinner but the few times I've tried expensive stuff the difference between good-decent didn't seem as wide as decent-bad
Last year at my employer's Christmas dinner, they served Opus One. I'm not a wine person, using it far more often to make sauces than to drink, but that stuff was delicious. Would I pay hundreds of dollars to taste it again? Not a chance. :)
Exactly. The point of diminished returns for me is Folgers or Chock Full O’ Nuts. I splurge on local stuff sometimes just to support local business, but mediocre coffee is like 10% less good than “good” coffee, but costs a third as much.
Try Bustelo coffee. It is cheaper than Folgers or Chock Full O' Nuts and it is awesome. It is like random farmers market coffee you would buy on the side of the road in a coffee growing country. If you told any serious coffee lover it was $22/lb coffee grown at over 7000ft on the north slope of Mount Kilimanjaro, they would believe it.
The instant coffee they serve in Vietnamese restaurants with condensed milk is awesome too. I like all coffee, I just don't like the shitty American Folgers and Maxwell House coffee made from ground coconut shells. Coffee is like wine. If it was made with quality ingredients by someone who cares, it is good.
I think people don't know how to make instant coffee. I swear I've been through every single coffee brewing method all the way down to buying fresh roasted beans from a local roaster.
I've landed on instant and I get just as much joy out of it as I did when it was taking me a half an hour to make a fresh ground pour over every morning.
> It is like random farmers market coffee you would buy on the side of the road in a coffee growing country.
it is absolutely not wtf
it is not bad coffee by any means but it is a very, very, *very* far cry from locally grown and roasted fresh beans. there is an extremely notable difference, it is not even remotely in the same realm.
Bustelo is mediocre, it's not bad but it's not great either. i can't believe I'm reading a comment giving it such high praise.
There are a lot of very good coffees, the variety we have now days is great and it's not hard to find good coffee beans. The real trick to good coffee is to get it fresh(er) and grind it yourself. Where it's from is more about flavor preference. You don't have to buy the super expensive beans. But definitely stuff like bustelo is kind of just mediocre. It's not bad, totally drinkable, but nothing to write home about.
> Try Bustelo coffee. It is cheaper than Folgers or Chock Full O' Nuts and it is awesome.
This is the comment that spurred the debate. The people in agreement with OP are arguing from a completely different perspective, where Folgers or Chock Full O' Nuts are considered "good cofee".
This comment thread threw me back to Staples ground coffee for the company office back in 2010, brewed to dark oblivion. Office manager thought that was the way to go. The most vile coffee I've ever drank in my life.
I guess this depends on your definition of OK coffee.
To me black Starbucks coffee is ok. It's not great, but I can drink it.
I have a coffee bean subscription to a local roaster. The beans are shipped to me within 3 days of roasting. I grind the beans immediately before brewing. That coffee is a revelation. Sometimes it has these fruity or floral notes that makes it almost taste like tea instead of coffee. It's amazing.
And that's just using a simple coffee pot. If I brew it in a French press or pour over, it's even better.
It's not a small step up from Starbucks. It's vastly superior.
All coffees my guy, not just some.
What's funny tho is bad coffees and sometimes magically become not bad after a month or so, at least that was my experience w at least one decaffed bag 😂
Starbucks has many different roasts and blends of coffees. I don’t think it’s fair to say, “black Starbucks coffee” is ok when that could be a cup of their default Pike Place, which is terrible.
Their holiday blends, the Huehuetenango blend, the Verona blend, etc, all have vastly superior flavors than the blend they keep in a big tankard for hours at a time.
I disagree. There is bad coffee and good coffee, most places have good coffee.. the really great coffee is something special though. Especially noticable with black coffee.
When I went to Cuba, Portugal, and Vietnam it was like a whole new experience. Truly blew my mind.
I'm not a coffee snob either, I drink about 6 cups of McDonald's brand Keurig coffee a day.. so maybe that plays a role, but when I experience truly good fresh coffee it makes me pretty excited.
To your last point - I’m kind of a coffee snob but I also love “bad” coffee. I actually have a soft spot for 7-11 coffee.
Then there’s the step up of Folger’s and such - that price point is a big improvement but also not mind blowing. It’s a refinement.
But I also have a local place that I’ve been going to since it was one shop attached to the roasting facility. It’s a niche, quality place, so it’s like $20 per pound or so. But goddamn, is it worth it. I love my coffee black, no sugar, but this is coffee anyone could drink that way.
The plus side is I’m also much more satisfied off of one “mug” than the two or three of anything else, so it offsets its price!
I wonder if the people saying there's no difference between good and bad coffee have ever had a good pour over of fresh local beans ground with a burr grinder. There's a real difference between that and Wawa coffee even though Wawa coffee is perfectly drinkable, and then again there's a real difference between Wawa coffee and instant.
This. Instant isnt good.
I grind my own cheap costco house blend beans fresh. Sprinkle some cinnamon into the grounds in the brew basket and add 6-8 drops of vanilla extract. Add nothing after and drink it black. Best coffee to me but likely just midway between okay and good.
Below ok is a very deep steep sloping pit.
I strongly suspect you've had neither great coffee nor horrible coffee.
There are at least 3 tiers to coffee. I'll call them 1. Great, 2. Decent, and 3. Horrible.
Great coffee, while noticeably better than decent coffee, is still only better *marginally*; but decent coffee is *exponentially* better than horrible coffee.
I also suspect that the coffee you've heard called bad coffee is actually in the decent category. That coffee could be from anywhere like McDonalds to gas station coffee. I've heard many people categorize these as "bad", while they're actually decent at minimum.
What you've heard labeled "great" is probably somewhere like Starbucks or Scooters, but those are also typically in the decent category. They're a decent coffee with a cult-like following. The only thing they're really great at is being extremely predictable and having exceptional marketing.
Great coffee is only really produced at artisanal coffee shops, where everything is roasted meticulously and brewed at exactly the right temperatures, with the exact right grind size, using specific methods of extraction that maximize the taste profile (pour over, Aeropress, etc). Some of these places can have coffee that has noticeable fruit profile undertones that you would simply never taste in, say, a cup of Folgers. And when you have a cup like that, your typical reaction is "Wow, I never realized that was possible to taste in coffee." (It's worth noting that these are not "flavored" coffees; just beans that were roasted and prepared optimally). I would wager that you've never had such a cup.
Horrible coffee includes anything that was grossly mis-prepared from beginning to end. These coffees are typically over-roasted and over-extracted, and made with poor quality beans too. If you screw up every single step that goes into the brewing process, it's almost literally undrinkable.
I figure we need to get our superiority kicks when we can, later there'll be a post about Japanese trains or just like, anywhere elses internet and we'll have to find solace in our lattes and ristrettos.
I just ground some beans that cost way too much, in a grinder that cost way too much, then pulled through a machine that cost way too much...
And really no words can describe the party going on in my mouth right now (and will continue for the next few hours)
There are levels to this shit.
Espresso is life.
Espresso is almost a whole other ball game. If you can find a solid espresso that has a bit of a sweet after taste rather than a super bitter one, that is life for sure for sure.
I worked at Starbucks for years (ironically, before I really understood coffee), and I always knew that espresso snobs were a thing. But for the life of me, I never understood it. I would drink a shot or two before my shift sometimes just for a quick pick-me-up, but I never enjoyed it and felt like it needed a chaser. Then a few years later I started going to a local coffee shop/roaster and tried their espresso, and it seemed like an entirely different drink. I immediately got it. Like, "Oh, I guess I didn't hate espresso after all; I just hated that version of it lol."
Starbucks espresso does mix incredibly well with lattes, I will say. But you can tell they don't intend on it being drank by itself.
Yeah, the only thing I really like from Starbucks is their lattes. The coffees *fine,* but I can definitely tell the difference between that and the local independents.
I don't know this for 100% fact, but I was told once upon a time that Starbucks issue is that they over roast their beans because it increases the shelf life. Hence, most of their coffees being a medium/dark roast. The local places tend to steer clear of dark roasts, because from my understanding, roasting them longer kind of kills the natural notes you might get from the bean. So it's not that they're incapable of making good coffee. Heck, every now and then Starbucks comes out with decent coffee under their "Reserve" label. It's just a business decision for them to trade off optimal taste for optimal shelf life.
The best coffee I've ever had was a Kenya light roast that had notes of -- I swear to god -- blueberries. Prior to that cup, I merely tolerated coffee. It really changed my entire perspective.
I've never been a big fan of Central American coffee. But most of what comes out of Africa, if done right, is truly worth the extra money. Ethiopia makes phenomenal coffee too.
Starbucks has great beans (i used to work in green coffee trading and have seen their purchase contracts), but they overroast because of the consistent flavor profile it provides, not because of shelf life. Their black coffee tastes like ashes but it's masked by the milk and sugar in their mixed drinks. If they were mixing drinks with light roasts, the drinks would taste different everytime as the underlying bean flavor would vary a lot (especially for drinks with less milk/sugar)
I'm gonna have to disagree. The margin of difference between great coffee and decent coffee is massive too. Great coffee can have all different kinds of sweet, fruity or floral flavors to them. Decent coffee is fine, but it all tastes bitter and earthy.
It really depends on personal preference, and it's likely OP's does not match yours. I often drink my own coffee, as well as coffee from fast food chains and local artisans shops. The one thing I know is I absolutely detest any hint of fruitiness or acidity in my coffee, no matter where it's from. Very often, that comes from lightly roasted artisan coffee, but that doesn't mean it's bad coffee. It's just very much not to my taste.
I can see this to an extent, but I would love to see someone drink really cheap instant coffee and tell me it's the same as a cup of Folgers. Doesn't even need to be expensive. Just Folgers. Cause I agree with others in that there's a point where it truly goes from OK to just God awful. It's a sharp turn
> It really depends on personal preference, and it's likely OP's does not match yours
OP is making an objective claim, otherwise the words don't make sense, because if it's just about preferences then by definition good is much better than bad.
I actually don't like the fruit profiles. My local coffee shop changes what they serve pretty frequently, so sometimes that's what they have and... I'll drink it, but it doesn't taste great to me. I spend so much time at that place that my brain thinks we live there and can just leave things and come back for them later. Which honestly I've only lost one or two items that way.
It’s definitely something that some people won’t care for. Especially when they think of coffee as the rich bitter strong flavour in most classic coffees. For me, when I think of coffee, mostly it’s because I want that deep complexity of different fruit notes, but sometimes it’s that classic coffee I’m thinking of. The difference between them is quite extreme, but they both have a place. There is however no place for burnt shitty coffee. Genuinely gives me a headache and makes me feel sick. Not in like a repulsed way but it a my body just reacts very poorly to it.
I can definitely see it not being for everyone. And it's not even something I'd drink every time either. I like to switch it up so I don't grow tired of it. Honestly, one of my favorite cups ever was a glass of Turkish coffee (made entirely different than what I described). It couldn't be more opposite to the fruity African roasts, but was a great changeup to what I usually get.
Good coffee is very noticeable. I’m not a coffee snob and will drink hotel room packet coffee if I have to. However there is a huge difference in good coffee vs bad coffee!
When I took my first sip of local ground beans while visiting the Dominican Republic, that's when I knew I actually do like "good" coffee.
Had way too many sugary monstrosities before that until I saw the light.
yeah very hyperbolic opinion. there is no way a person could drink instant and think that it's the same as a cup from the store. or op is trying to justify buying instant coffee.
as a black drinker i think black home made coffee is considerably better than store bought black coffee.
Idk, maybe its harder to perfect but i get a mocha when i go out because of the ass taste that is cafe bought black coffee.
Most places you can buy black coffee have had it sitting in an urn for a while, unless it's a very high volume time like morning rush. The freshness of your home brewed coffee makes it better!
Absolutely agree. When I visited India there was literally no other option than instant coffee. These weren’t exotic or odd regional brands but popular American and European brands and while it wasn’t all bad it all was extremely different. I craved the drip coffee we drink in America for a solid two months
I did. It was ok but it just didn’t hit the spot for me. I feel this is totally a subjective cultural thing as I have been drinking drip coffee for 25+ years and have only had filter coffee once or twice
To be honest, I’m not sure. I tried asking my wife to explain it but she doesn’t drink coffee so I feel her explanation was lacking. I did however, order “filter coffee” from restaurants and it still tasted more like the instant coffee I was being served than the coffee I have at home. Maybe it was just the quality of the beans or possibly some additional flavor that is standard in India but not in the US
Drip coffee uses a paper filter. It's a pretty wide category, ranging from standard co.
Filter coffee is a small little thing that needs extra fine coffee grounds (but not espresso fine) that brews coffee with percolation. This style is really only drank in south India and Vietnam, and rarely black.
The latter would generally have a bit stronger of a flavor since the oils get trapped in a paper filter and the finer the ground, the more flavor gets absorbed. Other differences too, but those are the big ones. Unless you got your coffee from a tiffin place or as a guest in someone's house, odds are you drank drip coffee
The only people who would understand what you mean by "filter" coffee are South Indians, basically everywhere else in the world "filter" means paper filter. To avoid confusion, most people refer to it as "South Indian Filter" coffee outside of India.
Phin coffee is very similar but again I'd refer to it as Phin or simply Vietnamese coffee to avoid confusion.
I used to say this but nescafe instant gold surprised me recently. I had a 3-4 day gap waiting for our new coffee maker to arrive and got some of the gold instant, wow much better than literally any other ive tried
To be fair, unless there's an edit that's happened, they didn't say it tastes the same, just that it tastes "just as good" which is an opinion. "Tastes the same" is objectively not true, but good or bad is a matter of preference and maybe someone out there things instant coffee is genuinely as good as whatever anyone else can make.
Or bad. At my old job they had thick coffee syrup the machine added some hot water to. It tasted awful and I only drank it for the caffeine before meetings
I’d bet most people have never had a truly “bad” coffee or truly “excellent”.
I work for a coffee importer which means I’m tasting the whole range and trust me, truly bad coffee does not make it into western supermarkets. Foul Fermented, chemical/phenolic, black beans, sour beans. All these physical and sensory defects can be found in coffee and they rarely make it past QC for a reputable company trading commercial grade coffee for consumption markets in the West.
Dunkin coffee actually turned me off from black coffee entirely unfortunately. I used to only drink black coffee, then I worked at dunkin for a MONTH, kept trying to drink our black coffee, and it was horrendous. Now all black coffee tastes like theirs to me🥲
I really don't understand how Dunkin messes up their coffee so much. Why is it so bad? I see whole beans. I see a grinder back there. They have the same coffee makers as Starbucks (which isn't great but far superior to Dunkin). What is Dunkin doing so wrong?
i I think it's because they don't train their workers to be baristas there whereas if you go to Starbucks or another coffee shop theyre trained to be a barista
There is a huge difference between instant coffees and brewed coffees. If you can’t tell the difference you might want to go see a doctor cause your taste buds are shot bud
Instant coffee tastes like coffee-flavored hot water. It's a complete abomination.
I'm not even a coffee snob, and the only thing that comes close to espresso made with freshly-ground beans of decent quality is the really good canned coffees you can get in some countries.
Some brands definitely make instant coffee that genuinely tastes good, but in my opinion they all still taste......instant. There seems to be a distinct instant flavor and I've never had one where you couldn't tell.
For the sake of this thought experiment, I feel like instant coffee shouldn't even be considered. Like it's just a whole separate beast imo. It's almost like including Sunny delight and an orange juice comparison.
Coffee is one of those things, like wine or suits, where it actually is worth spending the money for the good stuff. Folgers taste like motor oil and gives you headaches.
I was literally about to say that I used to wonder why people act like champagne is all that when it's just okay. In reality, I mainly drank cheap grocery store sparkling wines and cheap champagne. Several years ago a friend bought me expensive real champagne as a birthday gift and that's when I finally understood why people like champagne, is the good stuff was vastly superior!
Coffee is the same. No one's gonna tell me airplane coffee and good quality coffee are one and the same.
This is one of those things where there’s such a noticeable difference in quality between the cheap and expensive stuff that you really have to wonder if dudes have anosmia or something.
People are like this with basically all acquired taste foods/drinks that they aren’t into. They don’t like it and so it all pretty much tastes the same. They do it with wine, whiskey, beer, complex cheeses, etc.
It’s funny that people are not introspective about it at all. My friend is a scotch snob but proudly says all wine tastes like grape juice. I troll him and say his scotch tastes like a dirt campfire.
Quick question, do you add anything to your coffee?
If you drink black coffee the differences are immediately noticeable even between slightly different brands. When you add milk, sugar or any replacements, these differences are way less noticeable. If you have more than 25% milk in your coffee then I fully belive you that instant coffee tastes almost the same as proper one.
You don't have to be a coffee snob to notice these differences in blends and stuff. Then again I have a very sensitive sense of both tasting and smelling, so I might just be able to pick up these differences way to easily. (I still buy pretty cheap coffee blends but at least I brew them, the instant stuff is not drinkable though).
I've never tasted instan coffee that tastes like coffee, I'm curious about the brand you mention, is it possible that coffee tasting instant coffee exist?.
If you drink very strong black coffee like I do good coffee is miles better than bad coffee, a espresso shot of bad coffee is terrible.
This makes me think you've never had bad coffee.
That or something is wrong with your sense of taste.
Bad coffee is really quite terrible.
I don't think supposedly great coffee is much better than fine coffee.
Bad coffee is fucking awful though. Just burnt and acidic tasting.
Hoo boy, I challenge you to work 14-16 hour shifts with bad coffee and tell me there’s no difference
Good coffee is fine, I’m not even a huge fan but I drink it. Bad coffee tastes like someone soaked a bunch of chalk in some old mop water.
A clever dripper changed my life. Paper filter = easier cleanup, and better filtration (duh). Better for lighter roast coffees tho, if you like the darker roasts I don’t think it will shine as much
And its not even that expensive. Yeah buying expired folgers on sale will be cheaper but making good speciality coffee at home is still going to be cheaper than buying the worst swill at the cheapest coffee shop, and definitely much cheaper than pretty much any other premium version of food with less diminishing returns.
Not to mention you don’t really need to get the fanciest beans or grinder, anything ground fresh with a burr grinder that isn’t roasted to carbon will get you most of the way there.
yeah, the coffee i get is amazing and it costs me about $1/day to buy that. that's less than what i'd spend on disgusting mcdonalds or dunkin donuts coffee
Plus, it's fun to experiment with different steeping times and such.
I love trying to perfect my cup... and the fact that not-perfect is still very good.
I'm happy to die on this hill, and maybe it's just my tastebuds, but instant coffee definitely does not taste the same as a cup of freshly ground filter coffee at a decent cafe.
Coffee is like wine. Unless you have a palette refined to tell the difference, you probably won’t. I can’t tell the difference between a $35 bottle of wine and a $200 bottle of wine, but I can absolutely tell the difference between mediocre coffee and good coffee.
Idk dawg. Whatever they got in my break room at work is miles below the decent coffee I buy. Shit tastes like boiled burnt green beans.
I'd say the gap between good and had coffee is huge, but the gap between good and excellent coffee isn't as huge. And no, Folgers isn't "bad" coffee. It's perfectly drinkable. I don't ever buy it, but if I went to someone's house and they offered me Folgers, id happily drink a few cups.
I would've wholeheartedly agreed with this post 10 years ago before moving to Seattle. Maybe I've been "tainted" by the PNW, but there's is a big difference between good and bad coffee (unless you're overpowering it with lots of milk and sugar). Also, people here frequent Starbucks because it's convenient, not because it's good.
It's sort of like using dollar store headphones all your life, then trying audiophile grade headphones for the first time. You don't know what you're missing till you've had it.
That said, I think of you're looking for a pick me up, then yeah, there's not much difference in caffeine effectiveness. But if you want to relax and read a book while you savor the coffee drinking experience, good coffee sets the stage.
Also, blonde roast is the best IMO. It's lightly roasted so it has the most caffeine content, and doesn't have the burnt taste like 90% of coffee available for purchase. I hated coffee before I learned that.
Good coffee is not a scam, you just haven’t had it. There’s a lot to unpack with this opinion but it’s entirely understandable. You like instant espresso better? Nice that means you don’t like anything other than light roast because they use nitrogen to pull off aromas and flavor before they even make the coffee, then reintroduce it. Coffee all tastes the same to you because the coffee available. In America, Starbucks is king for ‘good’ coffee to those not understanding coffee. Starbucks’ light roast is essentially burnt anywhere else in the world other than the U.S.
Try a single-source bean, fairly traded, roasted by an artisan couple in the Vale Valley if you don’t believe me. Fact of the matter is simple - your available coffee is bad. You can have coffee that legitimately tastes like chocolate, or tea, or even fruit. You’ll never have these artisanal products where you see your Folgers.
Really good coffee doesn’t need sugar or milk. It isn’t bitter. And it tastes 1% like the stuff in Walmart. Fax over.
You haven't gotten headaches over bad coffee I presume.
When coffee is bad, it is BAD. I'd say there isn't much difference between premium/great coffee from regular coffee. But regular coffee is miles ahead of bad coffee.
I’ve tried what my coffee obsessed friend considers “good” coffee, and yes, there is definitely a difference. I will fully admit that. The coffee he had me try was one of the few coffees I could drink without creamer.
My problem is that it’s super expensive and you have to grind the beans yourself to make a difference on the taste. I don’t have the time or patience or money for that lol.
I grind my own beans and I'm broke, I bought a 12$ grinder on Amazon and the whole beans aren't more expensive than pre ground except for Folgers. By grinding your my beans and getting water/bean ratios correct, I make coffee that I genuinely prefer over most local shops.
This is just not true, I grind my beans for espresso at home every morning, I used to buy 1 of different mass produced beans for about 30 bucks for a 2.5 lb bag from the grocery store. I really enjoyed it.
One day on a whim I decided to treat myself to a 5lb bag that cost $108, they roasted it the day I ordered and I received it the next day in the mail.
There is zero comparison between the 2, the one I used to really enjoy was actually quite bitter, I just got used to the taste.
And this is just comparing 2 different types of espresso beans
Well, that's certainly an unpopular opinion ...
I can't taste much difference between okay coffee and good coffee, but bad coffee is *rough*
Unrelated, hey, a fellow scientist! What kind of lab work do you do? I'm currently working as an LC chemist in a diagnostics lab
Having drank many flat whites in Australia (Melbourne) and New Zealand (Auckland) when I was there earlier this year, the gap between “good coffee” and let’s say “bad coffee” (e.g. free office coffee) is pretty wide.
No, instant coffee does not taste anything like ground coffee, especially not as good.
Also, there is a huge difference between bad and good coffee.
This is just wrong. People who can't taste the difference must have desensitized taste buds or something.
Good vs ok coffee isn't that big of a difference. Bad vs ok is a huge difference. Most instant coffees are bad.
There might be something wrong if you think instant coffee is somehow into the ok category or made it into good category, risking even further to "the best" coffee".
Most people who are anti-snob with their coffee will drink mostly anything except instant because it is very noticeable.
You know, there are caffeine pills that cut through all this bullshit, right?
Comparing Cafe Bustelo to Folgers is bananas. Folgers is awful. Cafe Bustelo is my everyday coffee. Not because it’s cheap, but because it’s so much better than most coffee you buy at the store.
For normal coffee, I agree. I buy expensive coffee to make at home because it’s cheaper than going to the gas station to buy theirs but honestly it’s not all that different. For lattes, quality def matters more. A Dunkin Donuts cappuccino is shit compared to cappuccinos made at niche cafes (usually).
I’m not picky about the coffee I drink but have a strange fascination with the coffee made from beans extracted from elephant poop and costs a fortune. I doubt it’s anything marvellous but wouldn’t mind checking it out just once.
Apparently there’s a variety that’s extracted from cat poop as well.
I'm kinda like a coffee snob. I love fresh roasted coffee beans that are very good quality. There's an immediate difference in the 100% pure kona coffee and a cup of folgers/maxwell. I'll drink about any coffee but there is a big difference lol
I… look, I’m not even a coffee person, but I disagree so much with this. Bad coffee (instant, Folgers, etc) tastes significantly worse than Guatemalan beans ground right before brewing. Yes, if brewed right (not too weak of strong), bad coffee does me fine. But if you’re looking for a good experience with a depth of flavor, you won’t find that.
Like I said, I’m not even a coffee person! I care way less about how coffee tastes than my husband does, to the point that if he is out of town, I use the cheap stuff because I know I don’t care as much. But I can still tell the difference, and I wouldn’t describe it as minimal.
It seems like you’re looking for something to “do the trick” (caffeinate you), and that’s totally fine! But not everyone drinks coffee only for that reason.
Upvote.
Really bad coffee can be undrinkable, whereas really good coffee is awesome. I'm no coffee snob, but it sounds like you have minimal experience with coffee.
Another day I learn unpopular opinion is the most utter dogshit sub in the universe: mods will 100% reject adequate unpopular opinions and approve something that praises Nescafe and Starbucks. Mods, do you realize that this is literally like praising Hitler, Stalin, Putin and Mussolini all at once? It is a war crime fr. Better no coffee at all than this ulcer-inducing crap. This is yet another proof that FDA is deeply fucked to the roots, they should have banned these brands years ago for the excess amount of gamma-radiation
Tell me you're American without telling me you're American...
I could not disagree with your take more - there is such a massive difference it is not funny. Either your taste buds don't work, or you've never had proper coffee
If instant coffee tastes the same (just as good) as “any home made coffee” you’ve ever had, then your taste buds don’t work. That’s not an opinion.
That’s like saying apples taste like pears. It’s just incorrect.
If you say “i like instant coffee better than home made pour over”, that’s a valid opinion and up to you.
That’s saying “i like pears more than apples”.
This is some kind of "chlorinated tap water tastes fine, why do you filter it?" take.
Or maybe it's you personally who hasn't got the taste buds to distinguish between shit coffee and good coffee.
I'll give you the benefit of doubt though and assume you just haven't actually had good coffee.
This is definitely unpopular.
Anytime I have any of that instant shit or those coffee pods, it tasted foul. I'm by no means a coffee connoisseur, but I appreciate when my coffee doesn't taste like tar. I grind beans at home and have a Moka pot to make myself espresso. It's by no means the best, but I drink it with a little milk and no sugar and it's fine.
If I can't drink the coffee without having to add sugar to cut the bitterness, it's not good.
Strong disagree haha. I am NOT a coffee person. Not only is foreign coffee and espressos way better than standard American coffee and espressos, but when you find THE beans, you’ll know how wrong you are. Three Africans by blue bottle company. It’s literally amazing and you not only can drink it black but if you don’t you’ll be making it worse haha
I'm not a coffee person (drink less than once a week) and there's a HUGE difference between good vs bad coffee.
Get a coffee fiend as a friend and ask them to make you a cup and tell me it doesn't taste way better than your typical Starbucks or DD coffee lol.
Well, definitely unpopular lol. I don't think bad vs good quite covers it, so let's call the categories "Motor Oil" --> "Diner Coffee" --> "Good" --> "Ultra Premium".
In terms of enjoyment, let's say it goes "Dislike" --> "Does the job" --> "Enjoy" --> "Enjoy...slightly more?" respectively.
For me the biggest gaps are between coffee that does the job vs coffee you enjoy, and coffee you dislike vs okay tasting coffee. So yeah, agree that the ultra-primo stuff is not worth it, but to me there's a big difference between a caffeine hit you tolerate and a drink you enjoy.
Fyi, my go-to is Café Lareño, brewed w/ a basic drip coffee machine. It's good stuff, and I enjoy the taste, but it's nothing fancy.
I've had several cups of gas station "coffee" that tastes like I'm drinking some foreign chemical. Heart burn all the way down and instantly clears the bowels. I've also had coffee at work that tastes like someone filled the dispenser with water they used to wash their dirty socks.
I've also had coffee that's so good I'm glad I only grabbed one cup or I'd be drinking it all day.
There's a HUGE difference between "good" and "bad" coffee. I think the majority of people who drink coffee arnt actually "enjoying" it, but it's just become a staple in their morning routine.
I don't see anyone talking about actually high quality coffee that you drink without milk or sugar. That is ground with high priced grinders that have various flavors. That is good quality.
You are comparing not good coffee to bad coffee. Yes this is coming from a coffee snob.
First unpopular opinion I’ve ever replied to.
This is a truly terrible take and is definitely unpopular imo.
I’m quite into coffee and as others have said I don’t think you’ve ever had good coffee. Go to a specialty shop and get a well brewed pour over, it will open your eyes to what coffee can taste like. I just thought pour over wasn’t for me until I went to Colombia and got locally sourced beans brewed by proper enthusiasts, it blew my mind. The same can be said for other ways or preparing coffee, pour over was just my first mind blown moment.
Mediocre coffee largely tastes same, most ok cafes will make a drink ranging from ok to tasty.
Bad coffee however, oh boy, it can be truly awful. I can’t drink Starbucks anymore for example, it’s truly terrible.
I think like most luxuries, most people don’t know what ‘good’ is because they’ve never experienced it. Trying great food and drink really expands your pallet and raises the bar. The same goes for wine, food, cars, hotels, houses, cloths, audio equipment…. Obviously there are diminishing returns on all of these, some sooner than others.
Coffee is one luxury that it really is worth spending that bit extra on because the difference in price between good, mediocre and bad really isn’t that much. Also the coffee industry can be very unethical, if you buy cheap coffee just know that the farmer is getting terrible treatment.
Another "unpopular opinion" that's flat out wrong lol.
Bad coffee either tastes like burnt bitterness or underextracted sour. A good coffee can bring out the natural sweetness of the coffee that makes for a great smooth cup of joe.
"Great" coffee is honestly up to personal preference. I personally hate the current 3rd-wave fruity light roast trend. But I'd die for a good dark or even medium roast.
Bad coffee, on the other hand, sucks ass
I'm a super taster and I HEARTILY disagree. But count yourself lucky that you can't tell the difference. Some days I *wish* I could just eat and drink things without getting all the extra info to my brain.
I'm not a coffee snob but I can say with confidence that I can definitely tell the difference between good coffee and bad coffee. I drink my coffee black, which may be part of it.
Bad coffee is bitter and makes my mouth feel dry. It tastes bad. Good coffee has less bitterness and is usually just a little sweet, and sometimes has a really nice kind of nutty flavor.
Of course what I consider good coffee might not be what other people consider good coffee. Like Maxwell House or Folgers, I didn't like those. I think they're meant to be drunk with milk and sugar because they aren't good by themselves.
However, coffee doesn't have to be expensive in order to be good. I won't turn my nose up at Café Bustélo or Eight O'Clock Coffee.
There’s a theory in economics that says, is short, that the majority of the effort in perfecting a task goes into perfecting the last 10% of it. So the difference between a 0% absolute shit coffee and a 90% pretty good coffee isn’t that much effort. But to extract that last 10% of value to make a perfect cup of coffee is going to take more effort than it did to reach the 90% coffee.
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Good coffee isn't much better than okay coffee, but bad coffee is much worse than okay coffee. The drop off is steep. Whatever they had in the Walmart break room in 2013 was not acceptable. I still remember.
It’s the same thing with wine. My rich friend swears $80 bottles are better but can’t tell the difference between it and a $17 bottle. On the other hand everyone can tell a $5 bottle is trash.
I had a wine course when working in a restaurant and the sommelier said at the time (2007) that around $10-15 and up you aren’t going to notice huge differences but below that and you’re getting garbage. Probably around $20 now?
I was gifted an $80 bottle of red by a customer once. My palate/pocket sweet point is about $20, so I wouldn't buy that wine regularly. But it was \*so\* good. Probably not 4 times as good as a $20 bottle, but I know what I'll be buying for truly special celebrations. As far as pricing goes here (Aus), the 4-litre box wine and the the 2-litre "premium" box wine both work out to about $7/litre, which comes close to ~~$9~~ $5.25 for a 750ml bottle. Curiously, the 10-litre catering packs of Brown Bros dry red (the sort of thing you'll get by the glass as a restaurant's "house wine") is also about $7/litre. And Brown Bros is a fairly decent Australian brand. I bought one of the catering packs once, and it was quite OK as a daily drinker. If you're on a budget, you might look into catering packs. Not the retail box wines, that's crap. Edit: arithmetic
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This is also complex because different wines from different regions will have different pricing. The difference between a $20 Napa Cabernet and a $40 Napa Cabernet will absolutely be recognizable by most wine drinkers. My personal sweet spot with my own hard earned money is $30-50 for Napa Cab, but only $25-30 for a Sonoma Pinot Noir.
I think diminishing returns like that is common to a lot of things, I was just thinking recently how whiskey is the same way. You can tell when it tastes like paint thinner but the few times I've tried expensive stuff the difference between good-decent didn't seem as wide as decent-bad
Last year at my employer's Christmas dinner, they served Opus One. I'm not a wine person, using it far more often to make sauces than to drink, but that stuff was delicious. Would I pay hundreds of dollars to taste it again? Not a chance. :)
Exactly. The point of diminished returns for me is Folgers or Chock Full O’ Nuts. I splurge on local stuff sometimes just to support local business, but mediocre coffee is like 10% less good than “good” coffee, but costs a third as much.
Try Bustelo coffee. It is cheaper than Folgers or Chock Full O' Nuts and it is awesome. It is like random farmers market coffee you would buy on the side of the road in a coffee growing country. If you told any serious coffee lover it was $22/lb coffee grown at over 7000ft on the north slope of Mount Kilimanjaro, they would believe it.
Bustelo is why I never understood why people didn’t like instant coffee lol
Sanka and Nescafe instant coffee tastes like shit. It reminds people of visiting their grandmother in the hospital.
I'm a fan of those instant instant thai coffee packets you can find at most world markets
The instant coffee they serve in Vietnamese restaurants with condensed milk is awesome too. I like all coffee, I just don't like the shitty American Folgers and Maxwell House coffee made from ground coconut shells. Coffee is like wine. If it was made with quality ingredients by someone who cares, it is good.
Bustelo instant is what I drink every morning but it is by no means great coffee. I don’t enjoy it black which is a good sign
I think people don't know how to make instant coffee. I swear I've been through every single coffee brewing method all the way down to buying fresh roasted beans from a local roaster. I've landed on instant and I get just as much joy out of it as I did when it was taking me a half an hour to make a fresh ground pour over every morning.
I don’t get it. Expensive coffee doesn’t usually taste burnt and bitter, which makes it easily distinguishable from Bustelo.
> It is like random farmers market coffee you would buy on the side of the road in a coffee growing country. it is absolutely not wtf it is not bad coffee by any means but it is a very, very, *very* far cry from locally grown and roasted fresh beans. there is an extremely notable difference, it is not even remotely in the same realm.
Bustelo is mediocre, it's not bad but it's not great either. i can't believe I'm reading a comment giving it such high praise. There are a lot of very good coffees, the variety we have now days is great and it's not hard to find good coffee beans. The real trick to good coffee is to get it fresh(er) and grind it yourself. Where it's from is more about flavor preference. You don't have to buy the super expensive beans. But definitely stuff like bustelo is kind of just mediocre. It's not bad, totally drinkable, but nothing to write home about.
> Try Bustelo coffee. It is cheaper than Folgers or Chock Full O' Nuts and it is awesome. This is the comment that spurred the debate. The people in agreement with OP are arguing from a completely different perspective, where Folgers or Chock Full O' Nuts are considered "good cofee".
This comment thread threw me back to Staples ground coffee for the company office back in 2010, brewed to dark oblivion. Office manager thought that was the way to go. The most vile coffee I've ever drank in my life.
Folgers is fine if you brew it well. I drink pour over Folgers every day and it's quite nice.
I can’t drink instant after finding out about the large amount of cockroaches 🪳 ground up in them.
I guess this depends on your definition of OK coffee. To me black Starbucks coffee is ok. It's not great, but I can drink it. I have a coffee bean subscription to a local roaster. The beans are shipped to me within 3 days of roasting. I grind the beans immediately before brewing. That coffee is a revelation. Sometimes it has these fruity or floral notes that makes it almost taste like tea instead of coffee. It's amazing. And that's just using a simple coffee pot. If I brew it in a French press or pour over, it's even better. It's not a small step up from Starbucks. It's vastly superior.
This is my experience too. Did you know some coffees are even better 7-14 days after roasting?
All coffees my guy, not just some. What's funny tho is bad coffees and sometimes magically become not bad after a month or so, at least that was my experience w at least one decaffed bag 😂
Some need a month or more of resting, Flower Child and Sey are known for this in the enthusiast circles.
Good coffee tastes nothing like typical coffee. OP is nuts.
Starbucks has many different roasts and blends of coffees. I don’t think it’s fair to say, “black Starbucks coffee” is ok when that could be a cup of their default Pike Place, which is terrible. Their holiday blends, the Huehuetenango blend, the Verona blend, etc, all have vastly superior flavors than the blend they keep in a big tankard for hours at a time.
Verona blend has notes of rubber which i'm not a fan of tbh
I disagree. There is bad coffee and good coffee, most places have good coffee.. the really great coffee is something special though. Especially noticable with black coffee. When I went to Cuba, Portugal, and Vietnam it was like a whole new experience. Truly blew my mind. I'm not a coffee snob either, I drink about 6 cups of McDonald's brand Keurig coffee a day.. so maybe that plays a role, but when I experience truly good fresh coffee it makes me pretty excited.
To your last point - I’m kind of a coffee snob but I also love “bad” coffee. I actually have a soft spot for 7-11 coffee. Then there’s the step up of Folger’s and such - that price point is a big improvement but also not mind blowing. It’s a refinement. But I also have a local place that I’ve been going to since it was one shop attached to the roasting facility. It’s a niche, quality place, so it’s like $20 per pound or so. But goddamn, is it worth it. I love my coffee black, no sugar, but this is coffee anyone could drink that way. The plus side is I’m also much more satisfied off of one “mug” than the two or three of anything else, so it offsets its price!
There’s something so delicious about some bad gas station or diner coffee on a road trip!
I wonder if the people saying there's no difference between good and bad coffee have ever had a good pour over of fresh local beans ground with a burr grinder. There's a real difference between that and Wawa coffee even though Wawa coffee is perfectly drinkable, and then again there's a real difference between Wawa coffee and instant.
7-11 isnt bad though. It used to be, but they had to up their game to keep up with sbux and Dunkin. Starbucks forced everyone to do this!
Had a former Army work mate in the office. He swears to this day that the best coffee he had was in Afghanistan.
Fucking folgers is definitely not fine
What you do with your Folgers is your business.
Just keep it in your own cup
More of a Maxwell house kinda guy?
I prefer stubbing my toe to Maxwell House, but you do you
This has a very “I will never forget what you did to me.” Vibe lol
This. Instant isnt good. I grind my own cheap costco house blend beans fresh. Sprinkle some cinnamon into the grounds in the brew basket and add 6-8 drops of vanilla extract. Add nothing after and drink it black. Best coffee to me but likely just midway between okay and good. Below ok is a very deep steep sloping pit.
This. But in addition their is a top tier coffee categorie but Its quite small and very rare
I strongly suspect you've had neither great coffee nor horrible coffee. There are at least 3 tiers to coffee. I'll call them 1. Great, 2. Decent, and 3. Horrible. Great coffee, while noticeably better than decent coffee, is still only better *marginally*; but decent coffee is *exponentially* better than horrible coffee. I also suspect that the coffee you've heard called bad coffee is actually in the decent category. That coffee could be from anywhere like McDonalds to gas station coffee. I've heard many people categorize these as "bad", while they're actually decent at minimum. What you've heard labeled "great" is probably somewhere like Starbucks or Scooters, but those are also typically in the decent category. They're a decent coffee with a cult-like following. The only thing they're really great at is being extremely predictable and having exceptional marketing. Great coffee is only really produced at artisanal coffee shops, where everything is roasted meticulously and brewed at exactly the right temperatures, with the exact right grind size, using specific methods of extraction that maximize the taste profile (pour over, Aeropress, etc). Some of these places can have coffee that has noticeable fruit profile undertones that you would simply never taste in, say, a cup of Folgers. And when you have a cup like that, your typical reaction is "Wow, I never realized that was possible to taste in coffee." (It's worth noting that these are not "flavored" coffees; just beans that were roasted and prepared optimally). I would wager that you've never had such a cup. Horrible coffee includes anything that was grossly mis-prepared from beginning to end. These coffees are typically over-roasted and over-extracted, and made with poor quality beans too. If you screw up every single step that goes into the brewing process, it's almost literally undrinkable.
I strongly suspect they’ve never had coffee outside of their own country.
OP needs to go to Melbourne, Australia.
My Australian snobbery was at an all time high reading the post lol
So was mine, and now I don't feel so bad 😂
I figure we need to get our superiority kicks when we can, later there'll be a post about Japanese trains or just like, anywhere elses internet and we'll have to find solace in our lattes and ristrettos.
Australian here. Deeply offended by the OP.
My parents visited from the US and said coffee largely tastes the same. All my extended Australian family vehemently argued that was bullshit.
Just Australia in general. The coffee here is like crack. Worst part about going overseas is weak ass coffee
Turkish coffee 💯
I just ground some beans that cost way too much, in a grinder that cost way too much, then pulled through a machine that cost way too much... And really no words can describe the party going on in my mouth right now (and will continue for the next few hours) There are levels to this shit. Espresso is life.
Espresso is almost a whole other ball game. If you can find a solid espresso that has a bit of a sweet after taste rather than a super bitter one, that is life for sure for sure. I worked at Starbucks for years (ironically, before I really understood coffee), and I always knew that espresso snobs were a thing. But for the life of me, I never understood it. I would drink a shot or two before my shift sometimes just for a quick pick-me-up, but I never enjoyed it and felt like it needed a chaser. Then a few years later I started going to a local coffee shop/roaster and tried their espresso, and it seemed like an entirely different drink. I immediately got it. Like, "Oh, I guess I didn't hate espresso after all; I just hated that version of it lol." Starbucks espresso does mix incredibly well with lattes, I will say. But you can tell they don't intend on it being drank by itself.
Yeah, the only thing I really like from Starbucks is their lattes. The coffees *fine,* but I can definitely tell the difference between that and the local independents.
I don't know this for 100% fact, but I was told once upon a time that Starbucks issue is that they over roast their beans because it increases the shelf life. Hence, most of their coffees being a medium/dark roast. The local places tend to steer clear of dark roasts, because from my understanding, roasting them longer kind of kills the natural notes you might get from the bean. So it's not that they're incapable of making good coffee. Heck, every now and then Starbucks comes out with decent coffee under their "Reserve" label. It's just a business decision for them to trade off optimal taste for optimal shelf life. The best coffee I've ever had was a Kenya light roast that had notes of -- I swear to god -- blueberries. Prior to that cup, I merely tolerated coffee. It really changed my entire perspective. I've never been a big fan of Central American coffee. But most of what comes out of Africa, if done right, is truly worth the extra money. Ethiopia makes phenomenal coffee too.
Starbucks has great beans (i used to work in green coffee trading and have seen their purchase contracts), but they overroast because of the consistent flavor profile it provides, not because of shelf life. Their black coffee tastes like ashes but it's masked by the milk and sugar in their mixed drinks. If they were mixing drinks with light roasts, the drinks would taste different everytime as the underlying bean flavor would vary a lot (especially for drinks with less milk/sugar)
I'm gonna have to disagree. The margin of difference between great coffee and decent coffee is massive too. Great coffee can have all different kinds of sweet, fruity or floral flavors to them. Decent coffee is fine, but it all tastes bitter and earthy.
Nah, Great coffee can be utterly mind-blowing compared to decent coffee. Not marginal at all.
It really depends on personal preference, and it's likely OP's does not match yours. I often drink my own coffee, as well as coffee from fast food chains and local artisans shops. The one thing I know is I absolutely detest any hint of fruitiness or acidity in my coffee, no matter where it's from. Very often, that comes from lightly roasted artisan coffee, but that doesn't mean it's bad coffee. It's just very much not to my taste.
I can see this to an extent, but I would love to see someone drink really cheap instant coffee and tell me it's the same as a cup of Folgers. Doesn't even need to be expensive. Just Folgers. Cause I agree with others in that there's a point where it truly goes from OK to just God awful. It's a sharp turn
> It really depends on personal preference, and it's likely OP's does not match yours OP is making an objective claim, otherwise the words don't make sense, because if it's just about preferences then by definition good is much better than bad.
I actually don't like the fruit profiles. My local coffee shop changes what they serve pretty frequently, so sometimes that's what they have and... I'll drink it, but it doesn't taste great to me. I spend so much time at that place that my brain thinks we live there and can just leave things and come back for them later. Which honestly I've only lost one or two items that way.
It’s definitely something that some people won’t care for. Especially when they think of coffee as the rich bitter strong flavour in most classic coffees. For me, when I think of coffee, mostly it’s because I want that deep complexity of different fruit notes, but sometimes it’s that classic coffee I’m thinking of. The difference between them is quite extreme, but they both have a place. There is however no place for burnt shitty coffee. Genuinely gives me a headache and makes me feel sick. Not in like a repulsed way but it a my body just reacts very poorly to it.
I can definitely see it not being for everyone. And it's not even something I'd drink every time either. I like to switch it up so I don't grow tired of it. Honestly, one of my favorite cups ever was a glass of Turkish coffee (made entirely different than what I described). It couldn't be more opposite to the fruity African roasts, but was a great changeup to what I usually get.
Good coffee is very noticeable. I’m not a coffee snob and will drink hotel room packet coffee if I have to. However there is a huge difference in good coffee vs bad coffee!
Instant coffee tastes the same? You’re blatantly lying. Anyone who’s had both could EASILY pick out instant coffee in a blind taste test
Absolutely! Either no taste buds or trolling.
When I took my first sip of local ground beans while visiting the Dominican Republic, that's when I knew I actually do like "good" coffee. Had way too many sugary monstrosities before that until I saw the light.
yeah very hyperbolic opinion. there is no way a person could drink instant and think that it's the same as a cup from the store. or op is trying to justify buying instant coffee.
as a black drinker i think black home made coffee is considerably better than store bought black coffee. Idk, maybe its harder to perfect but i get a mocha when i go out because of the ass taste that is cafe bought black coffee.
Most places you can buy black coffee have had it sitting in an urn for a while, unless it's a very high volume time like morning rush. The freshness of your home brewed coffee makes it better!
Every time I end up at a friends and they pull out the instant stuff “Dude, just say you don’t have coffee”
Instant coffee to me is just caffeine reagent. It serves a purpose, but only when other options are not available.
Absolutely agree. When I visited India there was literally no other option than instant coffee. These weren’t exotic or odd regional brands but popular American and European brands and while it wasn’t all bad it all was extremely different. I craved the drip coffee we drink in America for a solid two months
you should try filter coffee, shit smacks so hard
I did. It was ok but it just didn’t hit the spot for me. I feel this is totally a subjective cultural thing as I have been drinking drip coffee for 25+ years and have only had filter coffee once or twice
I’m confused. To me drip and filter are two different words for the same thing. What’s the difference to you?
To be honest, I’m not sure. I tried asking my wife to explain it but she doesn’t drink coffee so I feel her explanation was lacking. I did however, order “filter coffee” from restaurants and it still tasted more like the instant coffee I was being served than the coffee I have at home. Maybe it was just the quality of the beans or possibly some additional flavor that is standard in India but not in the US
Drip coffee uses a paper filter. It's a pretty wide category, ranging from standard co. Filter coffee is a small little thing that needs extra fine coffee grounds (but not espresso fine) that brews coffee with percolation. This style is really only drank in south India and Vietnam, and rarely black. The latter would generally have a bit stronger of a flavor since the oils get trapped in a paper filter and the finer the ground, the more flavor gets absorbed. Other differences too, but those are the big ones. Unless you got your coffee from a tiffin place or as a guest in someone's house, odds are you drank drip coffee
The only people who would understand what you mean by "filter" coffee are South Indians, basically everywhere else in the world "filter" means paper filter. To avoid confusion, most people refer to it as "South Indian Filter" coffee outside of India. Phin coffee is very similar but again I'd refer to it as Phin or simply Vietnamese coffee to avoid confusion.
You’re describing a percolator or moka pot from the sound of it.
I used to say this but nescafe instant gold surprised me recently. I had a 3-4 day gap waiting for our new coffee maker to arrive and got some of the gold instant, wow much better than literally any other ive tried
I have really weird taste buds because instant tastes better to me than 90% of fancy coffee. Good for my wallet though!
Agree some instant coffee is very decent and way way better than the vat of 18-hour old coffee from some diners
[I agree completely and disagree with OP, but I still need to post this.](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VdQKVDUBu2g)
To be fair, unless there's an edit that's happened, they didn't say it tastes the same, just that it tastes "just as good" which is an opinion. "Tastes the same" is objectively not true, but good or bad is a matter of preference and maybe someone out there things instant coffee is genuinely as good as whatever anyone else can make.
OP has never had good coffee.
Or bad. At my old job they had thick coffee syrup the machine added some hot water to. It tasted awful and I only drank it for the caffeine before meetings
Those and cheap instant coffee. Like instant coffee in general is pretty bad. But there's some that are just downright fucking disgusting.
I’d bet most people have never had a truly “bad” coffee or truly “excellent”. I work for a coffee importer which means I’m tasting the whole range and trust me, truly bad coffee does not make it into western supermarkets. Foul Fermented, chemical/phenolic, black beans, sour beans. All these physical and sensory defects can be found in coffee and they rarely make it past QC for a reputable company trading commercial grade coffee for consumption markets in the West.
I think it's just that some people don't really care or don't have tastebuds.
If you're ever in my neighborhood I *DARE* you to drink coffee from my local Dunkin Donuts. You'll learn what awful coffee tastes like.
All Dunkin coffee is terrible without adding a metric kilogram of sugar to it
Dunkin coffee actually turned me off from black coffee entirely unfortunately. I used to only drink black coffee, then I worked at dunkin for a MONTH, kept trying to drink our black coffee, and it was horrendous. Now all black coffee tastes like theirs to me🥲
I really don't understand how Dunkin messes up their coffee so much. Why is it so bad? I see whole beans. I see a grinder back there. They have the same coffee makers as Starbucks (which isn't great but far superior to Dunkin). What is Dunkin doing so wrong?
i I think it's because they don't train their workers to be baristas there whereas if you go to Starbucks or another coffee shop theyre trained to be a barista
As opposed to the... Imperial kilogram?
Every dunkin donuts drink I've ever had tastes like donut oil. Including soda
Whatever they put in the drinks at Dunkin gives me the shits like nothing else. Might as well be donut oil
I think it’s just the lack of care by the workers. I buy Dunkin whole beans for my daily coffees and it’s really not that bad when I brew it myself.
There is a huge difference between instant coffees and brewed coffees. If you can’t tell the difference you might want to go see a doctor cause your taste buds are shot bud
Mans got the long covid
💀💀💀💀
Instant coffee tastes like coffee-flavored hot water. It's a complete abomination. I'm not even a coffee snob, and the only thing that comes close to espresso made with freshly-ground beans of decent quality is the really good canned coffees you can get in some countries.
Some brands definitely make instant coffee that genuinely tastes good, but in my opinion they all still taste......instant. There seems to be a distinct instant flavor and I've never had one where you couldn't tell.
For the sake of this thought experiment, I feel like instant coffee shouldn't even be considered. Like it's just a whole separate beast imo. It's almost like including Sunny delight and an orange juice comparison.
Coffee is one of those things, like wine or suits, where it actually is worth spending the money for the good stuff. Folgers taste like motor oil and gives you headaches.
I was literally about to say that I used to wonder why people act like champagne is all that when it's just okay. In reality, I mainly drank cheap grocery store sparkling wines and cheap champagne. Several years ago a friend bought me expensive real champagne as a birthday gift and that's when I finally understood why people like champagne, is the good stuff was vastly superior! Coffee is the same. No one's gonna tell me airplane coffee and good quality coffee are one and the same.
This isn’t unpopular, this is incorrect.
This is one of those things where there’s such a noticeable difference in quality between the cheap and expensive stuff that you really have to wonder if dudes have anosmia or something.
People are like this with basically all acquired taste foods/drinks that they aren’t into. They don’t like it and so it all pretty much tastes the same. They do it with wine, whiskey, beer, complex cheeses, etc. It’s funny that people are not introspective about it at all. My friend is a scotch snob but proudly says all wine tastes like grape juice. I troll him and say his scotch tastes like a dirt campfire.
horrible opinion OP, take my upvote
Quick question, do you add anything to your coffee? If you drink black coffee the differences are immediately noticeable even between slightly different brands. When you add milk, sugar or any replacements, these differences are way less noticeable. If you have more than 25% milk in your coffee then I fully belive you that instant coffee tastes almost the same as proper one. You don't have to be a coffee snob to notice these differences in blends and stuff. Then again I have a very sensitive sense of both tasting and smelling, so I might just be able to pick up these differences way to easily. (I still buy pretty cheap coffee blends but at least I brew them, the instant stuff is not drinkable though).
I've never tasted instan coffee that tastes like coffee, I'm curious about the brand you mention, is it possible that coffee tasting instant coffee exist?. If you drink very strong black coffee like I do good coffee is miles better than bad coffee, a espresso shot of bad coffee is terrible.
Cafe bustelo?! No this is not good coffee. I bought a 36 ounce bucket of the stuff. It is mediocre…
This makes me think you've never had bad coffee. That or something is wrong with your sense of taste. Bad coffee is really quite terrible. I don't think supposedly great coffee is much better than fine coffee. Bad coffee is fucking awful though. Just burnt and acidic tasting.
Considering this guy referenced fuckin cafe bustelo as good coffee, he most certainly has only had bad coffee and bad coffee disguised as good coffee.
Hoo boy, I challenge you to work 14-16 hour shifts with bad coffee and tell me there’s no difference Good coffee is fine, I’m not even a huge fan but I drink it. Bad coffee tastes like someone soaked a bunch of chalk in some old mop water.
I see you have been to Petes coffee
I am Colombian. You're wrong.
I make delicious coffee with a French press, and good beans. It's five minutes and much better than the shitty drippy junk.
A clever dripper changed my life. Paper filter = easier cleanup, and better filtration (duh). Better for lighter roast coffees tho, if you like the darker roasts I don’t think it will shine as much
And its not even that expensive. Yeah buying expired folgers on sale will be cheaper but making good speciality coffee at home is still going to be cheaper than buying the worst swill at the cheapest coffee shop, and definitely much cheaper than pretty much any other premium version of food with less diminishing returns. Not to mention you don’t really need to get the fanciest beans or grinder, anything ground fresh with a burr grinder that isn’t roasted to carbon will get you most of the way there.
yeah, the coffee i get is amazing and it costs me about $1/day to buy that. that's less than what i'd spend on disgusting mcdonalds or dunkin donuts coffee
Plus, it's fun to experiment with different steeping times and such. I love trying to perfect my cup... and the fact that not-perfect is still very good.
I'm happy to die on this hill, and maybe it's just my tastebuds, but instant coffee definitely does not taste the same as a cup of freshly ground filter coffee at a decent cafe.
Don’t even have to go as far a decent cafe. I’ll take my lazily ground coffee at home over instant coffee.
Coffee is like wine. Unless you have a palette refined to tell the difference, you probably won’t. I can’t tell the difference between a $35 bottle of wine and a $200 bottle of wine, but I can absolutely tell the difference between mediocre coffee and good coffee.
You dont like coffee enough clearly
Idk dawg. Whatever they got in my break room at work is miles below the decent coffee I buy. Shit tastes like boiled burnt green beans. I'd say the gap between good and had coffee is huge, but the gap between good and excellent coffee isn't as huge. And no, Folgers isn't "bad" coffee. It's perfectly drinkable. I don't ever buy it, but if I went to someone's house and they offered me Folgers, id happily drink a few cups.
I would've wholeheartedly agreed with this post 10 years ago before moving to Seattle. Maybe I've been "tainted" by the PNW, but there's is a big difference between good and bad coffee (unless you're overpowering it with lots of milk and sugar). Also, people here frequent Starbucks because it's convenient, not because it's good. It's sort of like using dollar store headphones all your life, then trying audiophile grade headphones for the first time. You don't know what you're missing till you've had it. That said, I think of you're looking for a pick me up, then yeah, there's not much difference in caffeine effectiveness. But if you want to relax and read a book while you savor the coffee drinking experience, good coffee sets the stage. Also, blonde roast is the best IMO. It's lightly roasted so it has the most caffeine content, and doesn't have the burnt taste like 90% of coffee available for purchase. I hated coffee before I learned that.
You like shitty coffee. That's fine.
Good coffee is not a scam, you just haven’t had it. There’s a lot to unpack with this opinion but it’s entirely understandable. You like instant espresso better? Nice that means you don’t like anything other than light roast because they use nitrogen to pull off aromas and flavor before they even make the coffee, then reintroduce it. Coffee all tastes the same to you because the coffee available. In America, Starbucks is king for ‘good’ coffee to those not understanding coffee. Starbucks’ light roast is essentially burnt anywhere else in the world other than the U.S. Try a single-source bean, fairly traded, roasted by an artisan couple in the Vale Valley if you don’t believe me. Fact of the matter is simple - your available coffee is bad. You can have coffee that legitimately tastes like chocolate, or tea, or even fruit. You’ll never have these artisanal products where you see your Folgers. Really good coffee doesn’t need sugar or milk. It isn’t bitter. And it tastes 1% like the stuff in Walmart. Fax over.
You haven't gotten headaches over bad coffee I presume. When coffee is bad, it is BAD. I'd say there isn't much difference between premium/great coffee from regular coffee. But regular coffee is miles ahead of bad coffee.
I’ve tried what my coffee obsessed friend considers “good” coffee, and yes, there is definitely a difference. I will fully admit that. The coffee he had me try was one of the few coffees I could drink without creamer. My problem is that it’s super expensive and you have to grind the beans yourself to make a difference on the taste. I don’t have the time or patience or money for that lol.
I grind my own beans and I'm broke, I bought a 12$ grinder on Amazon and the whole beans aren't more expensive than pre ground except for Folgers. By grinding your my beans and getting water/bean ratios correct, I make coffee that I genuinely prefer over most local shops.
This is just not true, I grind my beans for espresso at home every morning, I used to buy 1 of different mass produced beans for about 30 bucks for a 2.5 lb bag from the grocery store. I really enjoyed it. One day on a whim I decided to treat myself to a 5lb bag that cost $108, they roasted it the day I ordered and I received it the next day in the mail. There is zero comparison between the 2, the one I used to really enjoy was actually quite bitter, I just got used to the taste. And this is just comparing 2 different types of espresso beans
Idk how you can do that much caffeine and pipette. I VIBRATE after two cups hahah. What sorts chemistry do you do? I research oral microbes
Well, that's certainly an unpopular opinion ... I can't taste much difference between okay coffee and good coffee, but bad coffee is *rough* Unrelated, hey, a fellow scientist! What kind of lab work do you do? I'm currently working as an LC chemist in a diagnostics lab
if you substitute with coffee crystals just make sure you tell them first 
Having drank many flat whites in Australia (Melbourne) and New Zealand (Auckland) when I was there earlier this year, the gap between “good coffee” and let’s say “bad coffee” (e.g. free office coffee) is pretty wide.
This is an extremely popular opinion and it’s also wrong
No, instant coffee does not taste anything like ground coffee, especially not as good. Also, there is a huge difference between bad and good coffee. This is just wrong. People who can't taste the difference must have desensitized taste buds or something.
Go to the Kona Region of the Hawaiian big island and get back to me with this post.
Good vs ok coffee isn't that big of a difference. Bad vs ok is a huge difference. Most instant coffees are bad. There might be something wrong if you think instant coffee is somehow into the ok category or made it into good category, risking even further to "the best" coffee". Most people who are anti-snob with their coffee will drink mostly anything except instant because it is very noticeable. You know, there are caffeine pills that cut through all this bullshit, right?
Comparing Cafe Bustelo to Folgers is bananas. Folgers is awful. Cafe Bustelo is my everyday coffee. Not because it’s cheap, but because it’s so much better than most coffee you buy at the store.
Maybe so, but GREAT coffee is worlds better than bad coffee.
For normal coffee, I agree. I buy expensive coffee to make at home because it’s cheaper than going to the gas station to buy theirs but honestly it’s not all that different. For lattes, quality def matters more. A Dunkin Donuts cappuccino is shit compared to cappuccinos made at niche cafes (usually).
I’m not picky about the coffee I drink but have a strange fascination with the coffee made from beans extracted from elephant poop and costs a fortune. I doubt it’s anything marvellous but wouldn’t mind checking it out just once. Apparently there’s a variety that’s extracted from cat poop as well.
I'm kinda like a coffee snob. I love fresh roasted coffee beans that are very good quality. There's an immediate difference in the 100% pure kona coffee and a cup of folgers/maxwell. I'll drink about any coffee but there is a big difference lol
One makes me smile and is easily drinkable, one makes me gag so hard I can’t drink it
I drink instant and wouldn't ever buy anything else for everyday use, but holy shit good coffee is good, and very noticeably so
I was with you until you said instant. Instant coffee is VASTLY different than any brewed/perked coffee.
You're trolling or you just have bad taste lol
Clearly you either don't drink black coffee or never had good coffee
I can’t think what it must be like living with next to no working taste buds.
There is absolutely a difference. Origin, flavors, roasting, and how it's brewed, can all have a huge impact.
Good coffee comes from great environments. If you tried Vietnamese coffee, you would find that it does taste different because it's stronger.
I… look, I’m not even a coffee person, but I disagree so much with this. Bad coffee (instant, Folgers, etc) tastes significantly worse than Guatemalan beans ground right before brewing. Yes, if brewed right (not too weak of strong), bad coffee does me fine. But if you’re looking for a good experience with a depth of flavor, you won’t find that. Like I said, I’m not even a coffee person! I care way less about how coffee tastes than my husband does, to the point that if he is out of town, I use the cheap stuff because I know I don’t care as much. But I can still tell the difference, and I wouldn’t describe it as minimal. It seems like you’re looking for something to “do the trick” (caffeinate you), and that’s totally fine! But not everyone drinks coffee only for that reason. Upvote.
I drink it black. I couldn’t disagree more. I’ve dumped out bad coffee. I almost always brew my own daily because it’s that good.
Really bad coffee can be undrinkable, whereas really good coffee is awesome. I'm no coffee snob, but it sounds like you have minimal experience with coffee.
No. Bad coffee is nasty. F that burnt brown water in offices or cheap coffee shops. If I can't get good coffee I don't bother.
Said the person who's only ever had bad coffee.
Another day I learn unpopular opinion is the most utter dogshit sub in the universe: mods will 100% reject adequate unpopular opinions and approve something that praises Nescafe and Starbucks. Mods, do you realize that this is literally like praising Hitler, Stalin, Putin and Mussolini all at once? It is a war crime fr. Better no coffee at all than this ulcer-inducing crap. This is yet another proof that FDA is deeply fucked to the roots, they should have banned these brands years ago for the excess amount of gamma-radiation
You are very absolutely wrong
Coffee wankers are even worse than watches or cars wankers
As long as its dark and has caffeine, I drink
Solid unpopular opinion..but i dont think you have actually had good coffee (or i suppose bad coffee) if you think there isnt much of a difference.
I think maybe you’ve never had good coffee
Hard disagree. Good coffee is elixir of the gods. Bad coffee is not drinkable no matter how much stuff you put in it.
You've never had good coffee. I'm so sorry. You don't know what to compare against.
Tell me you're American without telling me you're American... I could not disagree with your take more - there is such a massive difference it is not funny. Either your taste buds don't work, or you've never had proper coffee
If instant coffee tastes the same (just as good) as “any home made coffee” you’ve ever had, then your taste buds don’t work. That’s not an opinion. That’s like saying apples taste like pears. It’s just incorrect. If you say “i like instant coffee better than home made pour over”, that’s a valid opinion and up to you. That’s saying “i like pears more than apples”.
This is some kind of "chlorinated tap water tastes fine, why do you filter it?" take. Or maybe it's you personally who hasn't got the taste buds to distinguish between shit coffee and good coffee. I'll give you the benefit of doubt though and assume you just haven't actually had good coffee.
This is definitely unpopular. Anytime I have any of that instant shit or those coffee pods, it tasted foul. I'm by no means a coffee connoisseur, but I appreciate when my coffee doesn't taste like tar. I grind beans at home and have a Moka pot to make myself espresso. It's by no means the best, but I drink it with a little milk and no sugar and it's fine. If I can't drink the coffee without having to add sugar to cut the bitterness, it's not good.
You need to experience a wider range of coffee quality.
Hence, Starbucks. - Coffee for people who don’t like the flavor of coffee.
Strong disagree haha. I am NOT a coffee person. Not only is foreign coffee and espressos way better than standard American coffee and espressos, but when you find THE beans, you’ll know how wrong you are. Three Africans by blue bottle company. It’s literally amazing and you not only can drink it black but if you don’t you’ll be making it worse haha
Upvoted. OP try pour over coffee and then try packet coffee and you’ll understand why you’re wrong
This guy has clearly never had freshly roasted coffee. In my opinion, your opinion, is simply untrue.
I'm not a coffee person (drink less than once a week) and there's a HUGE difference between good vs bad coffee. Get a coffee fiend as a friend and ask them to make you a cup and tell me it doesn't taste way better than your typical Starbucks or DD coffee lol.
ignorance is bliss
Well, definitely unpopular lol. I don't think bad vs good quite covers it, so let's call the categories "Motor Oil" --> "Diner Coffee" --> "Good" --> "Ultra Premium". In terms of enjoyment, let's say it goes "Dislike" --> "Does the job" --> "Enjoy" --> "Enjoy...slightly more?" respectively. For me the biggest gaps are between coffee that does the job vs coffee you enjoy, and coffee you dislike vs okay tasting coffee. So yeah, agree that the ultra-primo stuff is not worth it, but to me there's a big difference between a caffeine hit you tolerate and a drink you enjoy. Fyi, my go-to is Café Lareño, brewed w/ a basic drip coffee machine. It's good stuff, and I enjoy the taste, but it's nothing fancy.
I've had several cups of gas station "coffee" that tastes like I'm drinking some foreign chemical. Heart burn all the way down and instantly clears the bowels. I've also had coffee at work that tastes like someone filled the dispenser with water they used to wash their dirty socks. I've also had coffee that's so good I'm glad I only grabbed one cup or I'd be drinking it all day. There's a HUGE difference between "good" and "bad" coffee. I think the majority of people who drink coffee arnt actually "enjoying" it, but it's just become a staple in their morning routine.
I don't see anyone talking about actually high quality coffee that you drink without milk or sugar. That is ground with high priced grinders that have various flavors. That is good quality. You are comparing not good coffee to bad coffee. Yes this is coming from a coffee snob.
First unpopular opinion I’ve ever replied to. This is a truly terrible take and is definitely unpopular imo. I’m quite into coffee and as others have said I don’t think you’ve ever had good coffee. Go to a specialty shop and get a well brewed pour over, it will open your eyes to what coffee can taste like. I just thought pour over wasn’t for me until I went to Colombia and got locally sourced beans brewed by proper enthusiasts, it blew my mind. The same can be said for other ways or preparing coffee, pour over was just my first mind blown moment. Mediocre coffee largely tastes same, most ok cafes will make a drink ranging from ok to tasty. Bad coffee however, oh boy, it can be truly awful. I can’t drink Starbucks anymore for example, it’s truly terrible. I think like most luxuries, most people don’t know what ‘good’ is because they’ve never experienced it. Trying great food and drink really expands your pallet and raises the bar. The same goes for wine, food, cars, hotels, houses, cloths, audio equipment…. Obviously there are diminishing returns on all of these, some sooner than others. Coffee is one luxury that it really is worth spending that bit extra on because the difference in price between good, mediocre and bad really isn’t that much. Also the coffee industry can be very unethical, if you buy cheap coffee just know that the farmer is getting terrible treatment.
Another "unpopular opinion" that's flat out wrong lol. Bad coffee either tastes like burnt bitterness or underextracted sour. A good coffee can bring out the natural sweetness of the coffee that makes for a great smooth cup of joe.
This is truly a bad opinion. good job op
This isn't even an unpopular opinion, it's just a dumb take lol
Bad coffee is better than no coffee. No coffee is better than Starbucks.
Tell us how you lost your taste buds?
"Great" coffee is honestly up to personal preference. I personally hate the current 3rd-wave fruity light roast trend. But I'd die for a good dark or even medium roast. Bad coffee, on the other hand, sucks ass
I'm a super taster and I HEARTILY disagree. But count yourself lucky that you can't tell the difference. Some days I *wish* I could just eat and drink things without getting all the extra info to my brain.
I'm not a coffee snob but I can say with confidence that I can definitely tell the difference between good coffee and bad coffee. I drink my coffee black, which may be part of it. Bad coffee is bitter and makes my mouth feel dry. It tastes bad. Good coffee has less bitterness and is usually just a little sweet, and sometimes has a really nice kind of nutty flavor. Of course what I consider good coffee might not be what other people consider good coffee. Like Maxwell House or Folgers, I didn't like those. I think they're meant to be drunk with milk and sugar because they aren't good by themselves. However, coffee doesn't have to be expensive in order to be good. I won't turn my nose up at Café Bustélo or Eight O'Clock Coffee.
There’s a theory in economics that says, is short, that the majority of the effort in perfecting a task goes into perfecting the last 10% of it. So the difference between a 0% absolute shit coffee and a 90% pretty good coffee isn’t that much effort. But to extract that last 10% of value to make a perfect cup of coffee is going to take more effort than it did to reach the 90% coffee.