The best coffee brands

Peet’s has been roasting since 1966 and the house style has barely moved, which is the whole argument for it as a default brand: you know what a Peet’s bag tastes like before you open it. Major Dickason’s Blend is the representative bag — Peet’s own listing puts it at 75 out of 100 on its light-to-dark scale, sourced from the Americas and the Indo-Pacific, with tasting notes given as “Earth, Spice, Everything.” That is a rich, rounded dark roast that behaves in a drip machine, a French press or a portafilter, which is why it is the bag a lot of people never bother replacing. The brand scores high here on range and consistency and mid on freshness: the direct-from-roastery channel is genuinely fresh, but the grocery bag most people actually buy prints a best-by date and tells you nothing about its age.

Stumptown is ranked here largely on one criterion, and it is the criterion that matters most. The company publishes the awkward truth about its own product — that coffee “usually tastes best within two weeks of its roast date” and that quality “really starts drop off after the 30-day mark” — and then prints the roast date so you can check. Hair Bender is the representative bag: Stumptown describes it as a global blend of coffees from Central and South America, East Africa and Indonesia, with notes of citrus, dark chocolate and raisin and a subtle floral sweetness. It sits in the middle of the roast spectrum, which is why it works as filter coffee in the morning and as espresso in the afternoon. The honest limit is that a roast date only helps if the number on the bag is recent — check it when it arrives, and order the size you will finish in a fortnight rather than the biggest one.

Lavazza is the brand to pick if your coffee life runs through a portafilter. Super Crema is the representative bag and the one a lot of home espresso setups end up on: Lavazza lists it as a medium roast Arabica and Robusta blend with notes of roasted hazelnut and brown sugar, sold in a 2.2 lb bag. The Robusta is the point rather than a compromise — it is what gives the shot a thick, persistent crema even on a machine and grinder that are not fully dialed in, which is exactly what a beginner needs and exactly what an experienced drinker chasing floral acidity will dislike. Where the brand loses points is freshness and naming. There is no roast date, and the range contains at least four similarly named “crema” blends that are not interchangeable, so buy by the exact name rather than the family. If you want the shortlist of espresso-specific bags across all brands, our best coffee beans for espresso roundup covers it.

Intelligentsia was founded in Chicago in 1995 and helped invent the Direct Trade model that half the industry now advertises, and it still does the thing that makes the claim checkable: the product page names the country, the region, the process and the length of the producer relationship. Black Cat Classic Espresso is the representative bag, described by Intelligentsia as its lightest espresso, “syrupy sweet, with vivid fruit acidity,” with notes of cherry, cola and orange; the lot listed at the time of writing is a washed coffee from Dota in San José, Costa Rica, from a direct trade partner since 2005. Understand what you are buying: a light espresso is demanding coffee that will taste sour on a machine that cannot hold temperature or a grinder that cannot go fine enough in small steps. On the right setup it is the most interesting shot on this page. On the wrong one Lavazza will make you happier, and we would rather say so than sell you the upgrade. Our best espresso grinders page is the honest prerequisite.

Fresh Roasted Coffee is the value pick among brands that take freshness seriously. The company says its coffee is “roasted fresh to order in eco-friendly Loring™ Smart Roasters, immediately packaged, nitrogen flushed, and shipped directly to your door,” typically a few days after roasting — a specialty-roaster process description at a price closer to the grocery aisle. The representative bag is the organic Ethiopian Yirgacheffe light roast, whose listing also carries USDA Organic certification and third-party testing for mold, mycotoxins and pesticides. Two honest caveats. First, the roast-to-order promise belongs to the roastery; a bag pulled from marketplace inventory was not necessarily made to order, so check the date on arrival. Second, the catalog is vast and quality across it is even rather than exceptional — this is a brand that reliably gets you to “good,” not one that will produce the best cup you have ever had.

Kicking Horse has roasted in Invermere, British Columbia since 1996, and its distinguishing feature as a brand is that you do not have to check the certification bag by bag: the company states that all of its beans are Arabica, Fairtrade and organic, bought from certified co-ops in a list of origins it publishes by name. Kick Ass is the representative bag — a dark roast with flavor notes the company gives as chocolate, malt, molasses and licorice with an earthy lingering finish, sold here as a 2.2 lb whole-bean bag that is also certified kosher. It scores at the top of this page on sourcing and near the bottom on freshness, which is the honest trade: certification tells you how the coffee was grown and traded, and nothing at all about how long it has been sitting. If certified organic is the whole reason you are here, our best organic coffee beans roundup ranks the individual bags.

La Colombe is the closest thing on this page to buying a cafe’s house coffee at grocery prices. Corsica is the representative bag and the company’s signature blend: La Colombe describes it as a dark roast of thoughtfully sourced specialty Arabica showcasing Latin American coffees, with notes of baker’s chocolate, red wine and spices, and says it has been on drip at its cafes and in some of America’s finest restaurants for over 30 years. In the cup that translates to a deep, chocolatey coffee that stays the right side of bitter — good black and better with a splash of milk. The reason it sits mid-table rather than higher is breadth and freshness: there is no roast date, and the retail whole-bean line is a short list of blends, so a household that wants a decaf, a light single origin and an espresso blend from one brand will have to shop elsewhere for two of the three.

San Francisco Bay Coffee is the value brand for people who grind their own. The company says Jon and Barbara Rogers founded it in 1979, and it now roasts in Lincoln, California — a genuinely family-owned operation at a scale that lets it price 2 lb whole-bean bags well under what specialty roasters charge for 12 ounces. The representative bag is the French Roast, and it is worth being blunt about what that means: a French roast is taken far enough that the roast itself becomes the dominant flavor, so you get smoke, body and low acidity rather than any sense of where the coffee grew. That is a fair trade at this price, and it is what a lot of people want in a big morning mug. What you should not do is buy the 2 lb bag if you drink one cup a day; buy the smaller size, or accept that the last third of the bag will taste tired. A good storage container slows that down but does not stop it.

Leaving Starbucks off a list of coffee brands would be dishonest — it is the brand most American households actually buy — so here it is, ranked on the same rubric as everything else. Pike Place Roast is the representative bag and the right one to judge the brand by: Starbucks says it was created in 2008 with its master blenders and roasters working alongside customers, that it is a blend of Latin American coffees with notes of cocoa and toasted nuts, and that it is blended so that no single characteristic dominates or disappears. That is an accurate description of both the appeal and the ceiling. The coffee is consistent and inoffensive, and it is roasted dark enough that plenty of drinkers who like it would call it a dark roast rather than a medium. It scores highest here on consistency and availability and lowest on value and freshness, which is the honest summary: you are buying a guarantee that today’s bag tastes like the last one, not a guarantee that either was fresh.

Café Bustelo earns its place at the bottom of the ranking and its place on the page at the same time. The brand dates to 1928, when Gregorio Bustelo — who had come to New York from Spain by way of Cuba — saved enough to open a Bustelo Coffee Roasters storefront on 5th Avenue in East Harlem; it is now owned by The J.M. Smucker Company and roasted in New Orleans. The representative buy is the 10 oz can of espresso-style dark roast, and its virtue is that it is honestly cheap and honestly good at one specific job: a moka pot, a stovetop brew or a Cuban-style cafecito, where the fine grind and the dark roast are exactly right. Everything that keeps it last is structural rather than a failing. It is pre-ground, so it starts losing aroma the moment you open it; the grind is wrong for drip and press; and there is no roast date or origin information. If your budget genuinely stops here, buy it without apology — see our best moka pots for the brewer it was designed around.