Michael Chang

One of my favorite coffee beans at the moment is Trader Joe’s Bolivian Blend.  The “blend” label is used because the beans come from a variety of farms.  The coffee is still 100% Arabica beans– no cheapo Robusto beans here!  The Bolivian Blend is a medium-dark roast, and it’s very aromatic and rich (caramel-like).  At $6.50 for a 14 oz. can, this is a great deal for really good coffee.  It’s been my favorite Trader Joe’s coffee so far.

Definitely get the whole-bean version and grind yourself.  Get a decent, low-RPM grinder that uses conical burrs.  These conical-burr grinders ($100) heat up the beans a lot less because they operate at much, much lower speeds (about 500 RPM) than cheaper $30 burr grinders and blade grinders (10,000 to 20,000 RPM).  Less heat in the beans means better flavor preservation in the beans’ essential oils.

Capresso makes a great grinder below $100 (from Amazon):

http://www.capresso.com/coffee-grinders-burr-infinity.shtml

Try the Bolivian coffee!  (By the way, it’s organic and fair-trade, too.)

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 12th, 2009 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.