I have a Starbucks very close to my work and for a while when we moved and had our things still packed I was going there everyday to get my coffee fix. Buying coffee at a cafe in Canada is much more expensive than buying it from the grocery store and making it yourself at home and what I learned over that week of buying out was also, that it just isn't as good tasting as making it at home yourself. I found it to be too watered down and almost tasteless at times. I found that I had to buy darker and darker roasts just to get some more flavor. I got used to drinking European style coffee and our watered down crap in Canada just wasn't cutting it. I really missed my espresso coffee maker during that week and since we hooked it back up I haven't bought a single cup of coffee from Starbucks again. Here are a few different brands that we've been buying lately.
I've been experimenting with a few different brands of coffee and the best brand that I've tried so far was by a company called Balzacs.
It's a Canadian company with several cafe/store locations scattered around the province. We tried a few different roasts by them and all have been quite good. I'm not an a coffee connoisseur, so I can't really distinguish between all of the origin flavors or nuisances in the roast. I mainly just like to drink it.
I did find this coffee to be the most balanced of the brands that I've tried though. This roast was their winter blend and for me it was even good enough to drink as an espresso shot.
Look at the crema. Try to tell me that it doesn't look delicious.
Unfortunately, Balzacs coffee is quite expensive compared to some of the other brands, so it's not our "go to," regular coffee brand. We mainly just buy it when it's on sale.
The other coffee company that we have been buying lately is called Kicking Horse. It's another Canadian roaster from the Western part of the country in the Rocky mountain range. It's a little cheaper and can still be pretty good if you buy the right roast, though I have noticed a discernable difference in the taste and balance in the coffee compared to Balzacs.
This roast profile is called Three Sisters and its a blend of roasts as you can see by the color variation in the beans.
As far as taste goes, its a little more roasted, a little more generic tasting and a little more bitter than the Balzacs. Less, smooth and less balanced but still okay.
The last type of coffee is by the same company Kicking Horse, but is a different roast. This one is called 454 Horse Power.
This is a very dark roast, as you can see in the photo. Too roasted in my opinion.
We bought two bags of it and I won't buy it again. The second bag was drinkable but the first wasn't at all. I don't know if it was a bad batch or what, but it was way beyond bitter and almost acrid tasting.
For this one there was no way I would bother to drink it as an espresso. It was an Americano that I loaded with cream. It still wasn't great but that was the only way it could be drank. It looks pretty good in the photo but in this case looks can be deceiving. Don't waste your money on it.