January 2023 - Wizard of Coffee

[ Summary ]Looking for great coffee without stretching your budget? This guide highlights seven affordable coffee brands—taste-tested and compared—to help you find flavorful, budget-friendly options. From Tim Hortons to Folgers, discover which inexpensive blends deliver the best value, along with quick Amazon links to check current prices and stock up with confidence. When I think of good coffee to drink, I’m not usually thinking about the best coffee on a budget. My financial circumstances have changed lately, though. Buying so-called premium coffee isn’t really an option for me right now.As it turns out, plenty of cheap coffee brands want to solve my problem. After researching several opinions on the internet, I’ve taste-tested multiple brands and made a list of the ones I liked best.Oh, before I forget — when you click on the links to the budget coffees listed before, you’ll be taken to Amazon, where you can check the latest price. If you order, this site will get a small (tiny) commission. We use those funds to host the site and buy more coffee to taste test. Best of all, it doesn’t cost you any extra. I just wanted to let you know.I’m pleasantly surprised at the great choices available to me even if I’m ordering coffee on a budget through the mail. This list of the best cheap coffee brands should be helpful to any frugal coffee lover:1 – Tim Horton’s Whole Bean Original Blend Coffee – My Top Pick for Best Coffee on a BudgetTim Horton’s is a well-known coffee brand, especially in Canada, and I have no problem listing it at #1 here. It’s the best combination of budget-friendly and flavorful on the list. Also, most of this site’s readers are probably already familiar with the brand name. This is a traditional coffee, the kind you might have gotten started with as a teenager.They use coffee beans from Brazil, Columbia, Guatemala, and Honduras, where Tim Horton’s also provides funds to help schoolchildren in those countries achieve more.This was the best coffee I tasted on this list, and believe me, I tried more brands than just the 7 listed here.Check the latest price on Amazon here.2 – New England Coffee French Vanilla Medium Roast Ground Coffee – My Second Top Pick for the Best Cheap Coffee BrandsI don’t normally drink (or recommend) flavored coffee like New England’s French Vanilla. But I have a roommate who insisted I try this, and I reluctantly did. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy my cup.New England offers several different flavored coffees, most of which are aimed at someone who likes sweeter, dessert-style coffee. If you like adding lots of cream and sugar to your coffee, New England is probably for you.Examples of their other flavors include Blueberry Cobbler, Butter Pecan, and Hazelnut Creme. I would normally turn my nose up at any coffee with those words in the name of it. But I liked my cup of New England French Vanilla well enough that I’ll probably give all these flavors a try before the end of the decade.Check the price on Amazon now.3 – Dunkin’ Donuts Original Medium Roast Blend Coffee – A Brand You’re Probably Familiar WithThis site has covered Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in a couple of earlier posts, one suggesting 10 coffees to order at Dunkin’, and the other comparing and contrasting the coffee from Dunkin’ with the coffee from Starbucks.But you can also buy Dunkin’ coffee beans from Amazon, and they’re not expensive. Yeah, they’re a little more expensive than Folger’s, for example, but not by as much as you’d think. There’s also a noticeable difference in flavor and aroma.Your budget might not be big enough to cover Dunkin’ right now, and that’s okay, but if you can afford it, you’ll probably enjoy it more than something like Folger’s.Check Dunkin’s latest price on Amazon here.4 – Death Wish Coffee Dark Roast – A Little More Expensive than Other Brands on this List, But It Might Be Worth ItWill wrote a great review of Death Wish Coffee a while back, and I don’t have much to add to his thoughts on how Death Wish smells or tastes. I will say that Death Wish might look like one of the more expensive choices on this list, and it is. But it has its perks.If you’re into caffeine buzzes, you can definitely get a cheaper caffeine buzz from Death Wish than many other coffees. That’s their whole schtick, in fact. There’s no doubt that a cup of Death Wish coffee is like rocket fuel when you contrast it with Folger’s or even Tim Horton’s.It’s not the best tasting coffee I’ve ever had, but it’s a legit cup of joe. The biggest sin a cup of coffee can commit, I think, is to be insipid or flavorless. You won’t have that problem with Death Wish.Just don’t expect a subtle coffee with lots of complicated notes to pay attention to. It’s just solid, strong coffee.You can check the latest price on Death Wish on Amazon here.5 – McCafé Premium Medium Roast Ground Coffee – You Don’t Have to Wait in Line at the Drive ThruNaturally, this site has covered the coffee choices from McDonalds before. In fact, here’s a funny story about me and McDonald’s coffee. In the mid 1990s, I managed several call centers. Coffee was always on offer in these rooms, and I usually brewed it.One of the young women I worked with there told me that the only place you could get coffee stronger than McDonald’s was in my call center. I was just brewing Folger’s, but I guess I brewed a pretty strong pot of coffee.At any way, a lot has changed in the coffee business in the intervening 30 years. Starbuck’s has become a big deal, and McDonald’s has taken its coffee game several notches higher than it ever was before.I was excited to learn that you could buy McCafe Premium coffee online or at the grocery store. It’s like a souped-up, grown-up version of Folger’s. It’s not as cheap as Folger’s, but it sure does taste good. The medium roast had the roundest flavor profile of the different roasts I tried.You can check the latest price on McCafe Premium at Amazon here.6 – Folgers Coffee Classic Roast – If You’re Like Me, You Practically Grew Up on Folger’sThis site has provided coverage of Folger’s before in the post about Folger’s versus Starbucks. I didn’t actually grow up on Folger’s, though. I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was 16. But the Dairy Queen where I worked served Folger’s, and Daddy drank Folger’s, so it was good enough for me for years.When I researched the price on this huge can of coffee, it looked like I could brew a cup of Folger’s for around a dime, give or take. The price might have changed since I wrote this. But I’ve no doubt that this is one of the most affordable cups of coffee you’ll find.And it’s not bad. It’s not going to set your world on fire, but it’s not bad. If you’re like me, Folger’s might bring back some fun memories.Check the latest price on Amazon here.7 – Chock Full o’Nuts Mild Roast – The Affordable Coffee with a Fun NameI’ve always heard of Chock Full o’Nuts, but I never actually tried a cup until I started doing the taste testing for this post. It’s a solid cup of coffee at a reasonable price, for sure. It’s not that much different from Folger’s, really, in terms of what you’re getting for your money.I’m from the South, and we don’t drink a lot of Chock Full o’Nuts down here. I understand it’s more of a northern thing or an East Coast thing. I’m glad I tried it, though.In fact, it’s one of the affordable coffee choices that are going into my rotation here at the house.Check the latest price on the mild roast from Chock Full o’Nuts here.ConclusionI hope that if you’re on a budget, you’ve found some coffee that fits your budget to try. I’ve enjoyed spending the last month or so taste-testing these more affordable than usual coffee brands. The original intent for this site was to encourage everyone to love coffee, regardless of their financial situation.That’s why the tagline for the site is “coffee is for everyone.”Most of the coffee listed here can be ordered online at Amazon. They get delivered fast, especially if you have a Prime membership.Which brands would you choose if you had to make a list of the best budget friendly coffee to brew? Let me know in the comments. I’m always looking for something new to try.

Month: January 2023

Best Coffee on a Budget (7 Cheap Coffee Brands)