Coffee

     I like coffee.  I'm not a connoisseur; I can't go on about the "spicy, earthy, chocolatey notes" of various kinds (taking it with cream and sugar is a downcheck for coffee snobbery!), but I know good from bad, and I know what I like.  Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee smells wonderful, tastes just like it smells, and if it didn't sell for thirty dollars a pound or more,* I'd probably drink it every day.

     Our corner grocer sold a "Blue Mountain Blend" in their bulk coffees that was solid stuff.  Not as rich as the real thing, but smooth and flavorful.  Awhile back, their supplier changed the composition and it has become hollow.  The aroma's fine, but the flavor lacks something.  The mouthfeel isn't the same.  I'd guess they changed the source of the less-expensive beans in the blend.

     They used to sell Tanzanian Peaberry, which is sorted to produce singleton beans, at least partially by hand (!).  The nearly spherical beans roast a little differently, and between that, the extra attention and the usual varieties grown, it's good stuff.  It vanished from the store during the pandemic and has never returned.

     They stock other stuff -- Columbian (almost the generic American coffee), dark roasts, various flavored types, and Brazilian.  The latter has whatever their Blue Mountain blend lacks these days.  It's good by itself, or mixed 50/50 with the blend before grinding.  --And I am not the only customer to notice: they run out of it first and fastest, which is why I end up mixing other kinds to stretch it out.

     But that's not the only option.  Today, I'm enjoying another reliable option: Ethiopian!  That's where coffee-drinking began, after all.  They grow a wide array of coffees and (with competent roasting) all of them I have tried have been good. Yirgacheffe and Sidamo both show up here.  I brewed a pot of Sidamo this morning,and it's a strong contender to become my first choice.
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* However, depending on how strong you brew your coffee, this works out to a per-cup price less than 25% of what you will pay for the cheapest cup at a chain coffee shop. So yes, it's expensive, but you'll pay four times as much to drink low-end stuff from a cardboard cup with a name-brand logo printed on it.  Sixty-eight cents for smooth or three dollars for burnt, you decide.