Great coffee doesn't come from a brand per se. It comes from people committed to quality. The best roasters travel to source and work with farmers and buy microlots. When you purchase the coffee you get the name of the farmer and the lot.

When this level of detail is given on the growing end, most times the roaster would not like to waste their money and therefore present their coffee at peak quality. This is done by selling whole bean roasted fresh. Having someone work their tail off for a season in the heat only to grind the coffee and let it go stale is fairly goofy.

As far as the fridge goes, consensus in the coffee geekery community is that you can freeze whole bean in double barrier containers in the freezer, but once it's out it's out. Don't put it back in. Keeping ground coffee cold won't do anything. It's already done.

I like Jacobs Krönung, it's perhaps my favorite tassimo selection. Notably smooth with no bitterness whatsoever. FWIW, I've seen it sold in bean form.

Lately for me, cafe cubanos are where it's at.

Clover Brewing Machines
 

Find a Starbucks with a Clover Brewing System. They offer some great international coffees and brew the cup at the time you order it. The taste is dramatically better than standard Starbucks blends.

http://www.starbucks.com/coffee/learn/clover

Better yet, as I pointed out a page or so ago, find a local cafe that has a Clover (along with other great extraction equipment) and knowledgeable, passionate baristas.

When I first began learning about coffee, I too went for the Clover at Sbx. It was better tasting than their other drip.

How do I see it now? Worthless and absurd.

You can brew higher quality coffee at home using a pour over or aeropress. The Clover still has the weakness of relying on a poorly trained sbx employee to calibrate the grinder. I seriously doubt they are back there calculating TDS and Extraction % with a refractometer.

So a Clover is really no different than putting pond water into a luxury car. The problem is the input, and the price of the machine. Most high end shops in the U.S. (the best ones) do not even bother with Clovers, and would most likely laugh at the idea of buying a Starbucks owned machine that costs $12k.

You'll notice most shops use Hario cones, Aeropresses, Chemexes, etc. Not a big refrigerator sized mammoth that does the same thing! Plus, there's something called a Gold Cup Brewer...

I went back and had a Clover brewed Kenya (I usually love them) and it was the worst I had had in two years. It was stale (old) and roasted way too dark for a Kenya.

Point is, if you think a Clover at Sbx is the peak of coffee you have a whole world of awesomeness awaiting you.

I am now really glad I don't work in a gourmet coffee shop.

Lol, why's that? Us coffee "snobs" far too demanding? ;)

I brought some Kopi Luwak back from Indonesia on my last vacation. Gotta, say, pretty good cup o' Joe.

Chris

Last New Year's I spent several nights here - http://www.coffeeestateinn.com/ - and every morning enjoyed fresh-roasted coffee from the coffee the inn cultivated in its garden. It was amazing.

In NYC, my favorite is Blue Bottle but Stumptown and joe are also good.

I think the key is definitely in the extraction. Fresh properly ground beans in my French press is my favorite way to go.

Ummm... whaaa?

... anyways... a great tasting cup of joe completely lies in the taste buds of the beholder. At home, I'm definitely not picky so long as it's reasonably fresh grounds, it's not weak, and has a nice aroma. I'm good to go.

I also understand that others hold coffee in a higher regard and understand its nuances much moreso therefore, can be even more specific in their requirements.

Yup. At least us beer snobs get happy drunk as we sample our beverage of obsession. Y'all just get more hyper :)

I roast my own coffee at home in a Nesco brand roaster. By contrast all "store bought" coffee now tastes stale and oxidized. "sweetmarias.com" has roasters for sale and a good selection of green beans. I also occasionally order beans from KoaCoffee (Hawaii).
Once you start roasting your own, you will never go back.
As a side benefit, the roaster does roasted malt for home brewed beer!

I know this is probably going to make a few heads explode but I really like the lattes out of the self serve machines in most QF lounges.