I've been saying this for years. I don't expect anyone to believe me, even though it is true. We've been taught to think differently, programmed by The Machine to believe what we're told. I broke with the herd in 1992. I remember the day it happened.

November 27th, 1992. Location: Barnes and Nobles Bookstore, Springfield, Missouri. Event: nothing to do, nowhere to go, but off for the day and obligated to do something. Drove 75 miles to hang around bookstores and coffee shops for a couple of hours and drive home again. End of the day I'm in the line at Barnes and Nobles, about forty five people back from the register, with a couple of books I would later flip through and leave on the back seat of the car for six months.

Everybody has the Christmas spirit, meaning they are standing in line with me looking uncomfortable and trying to avoid the rabid salespeople. The half dozen employees up front are from the Starbucks outlet in the corner of the store, handing out free samples. I used to drink Starbucks coffee but don't drink it there, because the coffee in the B&N Starbucks is terrible and makes my stomach hurt. I'd like to enjoy it but I can't, because I don't like it. When the young lady with the false smile comes up to me with a tiny cup of free Christmas blend, which everybody else is taking and sampling and saying Oh My! about, I grudgingly accept it and sip it carefully.

"What do you think?" she bubbles excitedly.

"I don't care for it."

"You what?"

"I don't like it."

"You don't . . . . like it?"

A hush falls over the crowd. Everyone turns to look at me. Eyes are wide and conversation has fallen to an historical low. I'm not sure, but I think I'm about to be burned at the stake. I take a second careful sip and grimace instinctively as I hand the cup back, still nearly full of black bitter stomach wrenching brew.

"No, I really don't. It's a very dark roast, very burnt, worse than a French roast. Bitter and way too strong. I prefer a good Columbian."

The salespeople don't know what to say to that--it wasn't covered in their training. Here and there among the people in the crowd of weary consumers who make the money that really runs the economy and then try to find something decent to spend it on, eyes meet mine and heads nod. The honest ones knew I was right. It's still true: you don't have to spend four dollars for a good cup of coffee. In fact, if you do, you're almost guaranteed a cup full of advertising and a brew you'd pour down the drain at home. I like my coffee. I'm not afraid of the truth.

Just last week some well respected online critics published reviews of well known coffees and did not rank Starbucks at the top. The best buy was actually the brand I've been drinking, Eight O'Clock. I wasn't surprised at the results, but I was surprised that anyone with a reputation to uphold actually said that--we are slaves of advertising, and this is not what we are supposed to be thinking. In taste tests last year, the coffee you get from the machine at MacDonald's was actually rated better than the brew at Starbucks, so this isn't a new piece of information. Now that the economy is tanking and many people are living on a whole lot less income than they did last year, this is a matter of considerable concern--we like our coffee. If we can't afford Starbucks we still want something better than Folgers. And in spite of MacDonald's winning the taste test last season, their coffee still sucks. In most of their outlets you can taste the detergent they didn't rinse out of the machine--if you're lucky. If you don't taste it, you have reason to worry the machine hasn't been cleaned in a long time. It isn't gourmet coffee.  It isn't even good coffee. 

I may be living on less, but I want my coffee, and I won't settle for Maxwell House. Tastes like pencil shavings.

I've studied coffee. It's a complex subject much like wine--many varieties grown in different regions, harvested in different ways, with subtle variations in flavor and bold differences in degree of roast. Experts can sip a cup and tell you the country of origin and the altitude at which it grew. I'm not like that. I know what I like, and what I don't like. The quality of coffee depends more on roast and freshness than country of origin, and some companies who think that same way are doing a good business--like Eight O'Clock coffee.

I've tried gourmet varieties and unusual blends and usually I've wondered what the fuss was about and why it cost forty bucks a pound (Jamaican Blue Mountain was astronomically priced a few years ago and unremarkable in taste).  I like Hawaiian Kona, but the Kona blends are usually ten per cent Kona and ninety percent whatever else was laying around the warehouse.  It's not the best around--a good Columbian beats a Kona blend any day.  African coffee, ok, it's usually worth it.  I bow my head in respect. 

Take any good coffee bean, grind it six months to a year before use, seal it up in a bag or a can, and it will be pencil shavings quality by the time you drink it. Canned coffee is like canned fruit. Anyone can tell the difference, unless you've never had the fresh version.

Roasting is the other major contributor to flavor. A mild roast leaves the oil in the brew and the result is a lighter colored coffee with a sweeter flavor; a dark roast is dry and bitter, a taste that is popular with some but not with me. Very dark coffee roasts are burnt. If you like burnt coffee beans, you'll like that. It's all about you--your personal preferences count.

Good coffee is first of all coffee you grind at home, preferably just before you make a pot. Even sealed in a plastic baggie, coffee that's a week past the whole bean stage has lost flavor. Aromatics and oils are volatile; they go away or decay. Buy coffee as whole beans.  Grind enough for a couple of pots. 

Buying beans is the trickiest part. Coffee beans have to be stored correctly or they will lose flavor--possibly even picking up taints from their surroundings. Obviously the musty atmosphere of a Walmart warehouse or shipping center is not the best spot for this, and the Walmart brand Millhouse shows it. Very often Millhouse has a stale taste, reminiscent of the labels on many Sam's Choice products that say "May Contain One of the Following." Millhouse Coffee demonstrates that same level of care.

Starbucks beans aren't bad, but they cost twice as much as some other brands and don't deliver better coffee. I've had a lot of Starbucks blends, curious as to why it costs so much, and the apparent reason for the high price is that people will pay that much for it. Folgers is cheaper, and in spite of what I think of their canned coffee, they take care of their beans. Seattle's Best is also pretty good stuff and quite often sells at a competitive price level. Eight O'Clock is usually the low price on the shelf, but the quality of their beans is consistently high. Obviously they do not store their coffee beans beside the garden fertilizer and plastic swimming pools. When I have money to spend again I'll try higher priced brands, but right now I'm buying Eight O'Clock.

The only way you'll know if it's good coffee is by grinding some beans and brewing a cup--you won't know by looking at the bag.  Even Walmart could change, at corporate or local levels, and suddenly start doing things right.  In some stores they may do it right even now.  What is completely wrong is to judge quality by price--that's no indication of taste. 

If you aren't satisfied, return the product.  Many companies want the feedback, and you'll probably wind up with coupons worth more than the price you paid--although that may not help, if the problem is the same.  Eh, makes a nice gift.

It's sad but true that most of us don't know what good coffee should taste like, because we've never had good coffee.  If your morning cup of jo doesn't have a little foam on it, the mark of fresh beans and the aromatic oil that gives it much of its flavor, then you aren't having fresh coffee.  Once you get used to good coffee you'll find that you expect it of every place that sells it, in the bag or in the cup.

Then you turn into someone like me.  A few years ago I went to lunch with some co-workers and we all ordered coffee and assorted meals.  Everyone was watching me when I raised my cup.  I expected good things, because that particular restaurant has good coffee.  I was concerned by the aroma, which definitely wasn't right.  I took a sip, and it was flat.  I called the waitress back and pointed out that somebody had brewed a pot without changing the grounds in the machine. 

Now, how can anyone not notice that?

If you really want good coffee, from what I hear through the coffee underground, you maybe need to go to Havana. Cuba. Quietly. Buy some good cigars, drink some coffee. Be careful what you say when you come back, because the people in charge of this country don't want everybody to know what the cost of suppressing communism really was--or is. They may be desperately poor now, but in Cuba they have the good stuff, and when the trade barriers do fall, well, there will be a lot of wealthy coffee farmers in Cuba. We'll have great espresso then. Now, we have something similar to espresso. It's thick and it's dark and it's full of caffeine, but it's not great. If you want to make it at home, be careful--you'll be working with pressurized steam appliances, which are just fine unless they clog up with something like a chunk of coffee bean, and then they might explode. Is it worth the risk? Nah. Not until we get Cuban coffee.

But, you can buy the equipment and practice with other beans, and you'll get better espresso than you could buy in a coffee bar.

I was once an espresso addict. I'm now in recovery, but for a time in the 90's I had quite an expensive habit, spending maybe $150 a month on the Dark Brew. The fellow who ran the Coffee Den I frequented straightened me out accidentally one day when he caught a teenager smoking a cigarette outside the door of his establishment. For about ten minutes he lectured the boy at the top of his lungs about the impoliteness of that action and how the Mafia and the CIA were behind the assassination of JFK and the government hasn't done anything right since Nixon left the presidency, and I got a good look at what happens when you're a heavy drinker. So be careful. It isn't a beverage for children or the unstable.

Save yourself for the liberation of the Cuban coffee plantations.