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The community to discuss buying European goods and services.
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General BuyEuropean product database: https://buy-european.net/ (relevant post with background info)
Switching your tech to European TLDR: https://better-tech.eu/tldr/ (relevant post)
Buy European meta website with useful links: https://gohug.eu/ (relevant post)
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Worth noting for any Brits that Kenco is owned by Douwe Egberts, so the same applies.
Taylors of Harrogate (the people who make Yorkshire Tea) do a decent coffee, for those that want a British mainstream alternative.
Personally I get most of my coffee from Revolver Coffee, who are a British cooperative who source all their beans from growers' cooperatives.
Start buying coffee from co-ops local to where the coffee is actually grown.
Fucking hell that's some grocery trip
Ugh...byebye D&E. It was nice drinking you.
What are the European alternatives?
I mean, as far as beans go, they will just not be grown in Europe.
As for roasters, I'd encourage you to look to your local roasters. Freshly roasted and freshly ground beans make for significantly better coffee.
Local roasters is the way! I can get world class specialty coffee beans in countless roasting profiles just buying nationwide. Market stuff is shit once you try it.
We actually do have EU-grown coffee beans, though not that much. In Spain there's one. The Canary Isles also have some.
I stand corrected, but still, I doubt this supply could sustain the demand from the full European market? I also have my doubts on whether the climates on offer in Spain/The canaries are ideal, given coffee's quite particular climate demands.
I'll go one step further. Buy green beans from an importer and fresh roast them yourself. You can roast in an oven, or buy something like the SR540 or SR800. Best coffee of your life and you will learn to appreciate and fine tune everything to your tastes.
The key to great coffee is buying good beans. Personal taste is subjective, but I go crazy for ethiopian. Kenya and Burundi are also frequently very good. Jamaican Blue Mountain is very good, but not worth the price except as a small treat. Kona is trash. Sumatra is just meh to ok. Colombian Supremo is ok, and the price is fair for what you get.
You will learn how med and dark roast pre-ground coffee from the supermarket is trash. Once you taste great coffee, you can't go back. You know what you're missing.
I absolutely agree but will caution against going down the rabbit hole of amazing coffee.
I get locally roasted beans and grind them myself. I WFH so I can take a 15 minute break often to get a lovely cup of caffeine. The offset is getting coffee from anywhere else makes me sad at my cup. Tears don't help the flavor at all.
Ignorance is bliss.
I'm honestly not that bothered by coffee at the lower quality end. I'll still enjoy a cup of instant when the situation requires it.
I do get to take particular pleasure in good coffee though, and that I am very grateful for.
That's good. Back when I was on r/coffee it was a known issue.
I feel like buying freshly roasted from local roasters and grinding it yourself gets you most of the way there, getting good equipment to roast yourself is both costly, hard and a bit inconvenient.
The locally roasted coffee already beats the supermarket coffee by a large margin, how much can I really expect to gain by roasting myself?
You are absolutely right. Fresh roasted with a quality grinder gets you all the way there for sure.
For me, the lower cost of green beans has over time paid for the roaster. I also buy green beans in 15lbs bags or larger, so it is more capital intensive, but green beans stay fresh for a long time. The clock starts ticking on coffee only after you roast them. Inflation has been on a hell of a tear, so buying more in advance has lowered my cup cost considerably. When I'm drinking the last of an order, I can't buy coffee anywhere near that price I originally paid. I also avoid frequent trips to a roaster that isn't near me or multiple shipping fees for weekly deliveries. I order large amounts usually 1-3 times a year. Large orders shipping is usually free.
You can always just roast in an oven, it's just more fuss and fiddly. My hot air fluid bed produces perfect results every time, and like I said, all my gear has paid for itself over time.
What I personally feel I gain from the additional setup is the ability to fine tune my roasts to the bean. I can conveniently introduce variety based on my stash of green bean varieties sitting in a cupboard. It's like a delicious hobby that never feels like work. I look forward to my biweekly roasting session.
Guests also know I serve a great cup of coffee. ;)
In Portugal we have Delta Cafรฉ. Probably you can find it in Germany.
Look for small artisanal roasteries in cities (The Barn in Berlin is decent, as is Roast in Copenhagen); theyโll charge slightly more, but the beans will be top notch.
Dallmayr Classic is pretty good, it's made in Germany
The supermarket house brand is always an option, and it's cheaper too.
For Albert Heijn that would be Perla, I'm not sure about Jumbo and the others.
Perla koffie, is huismerk van AH, uit Zaandam
I personally switched to Lavazza years ago. I didnโt do a full due diligence but it says made in Italy and generally Italians donโt lie on these matters.
Well thatโs unfortunate. But nothing is perfect and my money still goes to Italy since I donโt buy caps in North America I guess.
Wrong. Douwe Egberts also continues to produce in the Netherlands, but the profits go to the mother company, in this case in the US. Same with Lavazza. The only money that goes to Italy is to the wages of its workers. I doubt they pay much taxes as these giant corps usually find ways to avoid that.
Lavazza has no parent companyโฆ it is apparently still owned by the family. thatโs a partnership which is described in the linkโฆ seemingly via one of their subsidiary.
Hereโs the group structure from their yearly report;
Whatโs wrong with that?
I was wrong, Lavazza isn't owned by Dr pepper but has a partnership. In the Dutch article it says Dr pepper already has other coffee brands including Lavazza. I assumed ownership, as that's the usual meaning of wording it that way in Dutch (I'm Dutch myself).
Np, I got the opportunity to actually verify the whole infoโฆ but Italians keeps me for coffee :) Iโll keep the Dutch for my fishing equipment though.
Example of the difference between Italians and the Dutch when it comes to coffee:
Schiphol airport: a "coffee" is 7,90, is basically water with a slight coffee taste. Not regular Dutch coffee (like americano) but more like tea.
Milan airport: 2,90 for a double espresso, actually really properly made espresso from high quality beans.
No one beats the Italians when it comes to coffee. At Schiphol airport they're not even trying (who cares, no one is a returning customer anyway, fuck them, let's cheap out on freaking coffee, something which barily costs anything to make)
Was already never buying JRE brand product again, because it's stance on selling wares in Russia was: "Coffee is for Everyone. " I don't agree with that stance. I think excluding genocidal mass murderers is the normal thing you would do.
excluding genocidal mass murderers
As far as markets go, the coffee industry would suddenly have few qualifying customers.
This is one of the problems with the kind of market system in place. It is and has been enforced through genocide acts.
Gas and oil markets especially.
Arvid Nordquist is the Swedish goat.
Zoegas coffee is good but unfortunately owned by Nestle nowadays.
Avoid Lรถfbergs and Gevalia. They are functional and from a different time.
It's funny that Keurig is American since its name is Dutch for 'neat'. Americans are butchering the pronunciation though.