Death Wish Coffee came out in 2012 and went viral and all the coffee freaks went nuts over it. The hype around Death Wish Coffee has mostly died down, and I realized the other day that I never got around to trying it.
This post reviews two versions of Death Wish Coffee in ground form. You can also read about Death Wish Coffee in another post here, the one about the best cheap coffee brands.
Please note – this isn’t a sponsored post. Death Wish didn’t pay us for it. I bought my coffee (with my boss’ money) fair and square. I’m not being told what to say, and I don’t ever want anyone to think that I’d accept money in exchange for a good review.
I’m happy to review products and try them for free and such, but I won’t let anybody tell me what to write. If I like a coffee product, I’ll write that. If I don’t like a coffee product, I’ll do my best to explain why.
Death Wish Coffee: The Basics
Death Wish Coffee is a brand of coffee products marketed as “the world’s strongest coffee.”
They use Robusta beans and a trademark roasting process to bring out the caffeine content.
You can get bags of whole or ground Death Wish Coffee as well as individual coffee pods the brand lovingly refers to as “Death Cups.”
The coffee is something of a novelty – there was a time when every “coffee person” just had to try this product – but there are legions of fans who swear by the product itself.
Yes, it makes a fun gift – with its black-on-black skull & crossbones packaging and warning labels and such. But how does the coffee taste? Is it worth the hype?
Before I share my personal review of the Death Wish Coffee experience, I wanted to share the answers to the most frequently asked questions related to this product.
How Much Does Death Wish Coffee Cost?
Right now, you can get a pound of their roast coffees for $19.99 each.
They also have several bundle products, combining different coffees and other products together for a slight discount.
We bought a Dark Roast and Medium Roast Bundle – two pounds of ground coffee for $34.99.
The price may change in the future. I’ll update the review as needed.
How Strong is Death Wish Coffee?
The logical answer is that Death Wish Coffee is as strong as you make it. You can use more ground coffee or less ground coffee to produce different results in terms of strength.
The recipe on the bag recommends a ratio of 2.5 ground tablespoons for every 6-ounce cup of coffee. How does that compare to typical coffee preparations? Most people use 2 tablespoons of ground coffee for every 6-ounce cup.
If you follow the maker’s instructions and use 2.5 tablespoons instead of the usual 2, you’re going to get a stronger-than-usual coffee. The truth is, you could take your typical ground coffee product that you drink every day, use a little bit more grounds per cup when you brew it, and you’ll produce a stronger coffee.
Caffeine is not added to the beans or the final product. The creators of Death Wish brand coffees say that they use a unique blend and roasting process that intensifies the caffeine content of the beans.
However, you can use as much or as little Death Wish Coffee as you want.
How Much Caffeine Is in Death Wish Coffee?
This is a better question than simply asking “how strong is Death Wish Coffee?”
When it’s made according to the recipe on the bag, Death Wish Coffee contains 59 milligrams of caffeine per fluid ounce. Most people drink a 6-ounce cup at a time, that’s 354 milligrams of caffeine per cup.
Since a normal cup of home-brewed coffee comes in around 60-80 milligrams, you’re looking at a coffee that’s somewhere between 4 and 6 times stronger than average.
It’s a significant amount of caffeine, and obviously, people who are sensitive to caffeine should probably avoid it.
But if you’re a caffeine fan, this might be the coffee for you. Deathwish Coffee will certainly wake you up.
Another option, rather than avoiding it, is to make or consume a smaller amount, or use less of the grounds per 6-ounce cup, producing a gentler effect.
Is Death Wish Coffee Safe?
The answer to this question is different for each consumer.
Some people may be taking medications that don’t mix well with high doses of caffeine.
Other people may know that they are particularly sensitive to caffeine and avoid it just to be safe.
I’m sure a person seeing a cardiologist or other cardiopulmonary specialist should avoid Death Wish Coffee, at least until talking to a health professional.
Here’s why – the FDA says caffeine doses up to 400 mg are generally safe. A cup of Death Wish Coffee can easily press right up against that amount, or easily exceed it, depending on the way it’s made and consumed. Two cups of Death Wish would put you well past the level of caffeine that the FDA recognizes as safe.
However, this doesn’t mean the product isn’t safe.
Those delicious Little Debbie cakes at the grocery store are perfectly safe – provided you don’t eat 500 of them in a row or eat a box of them every day for twenty years or something.
The whisky and vodka you can buy at your neighborhood liquor store are perfectly safe products, provided you use them the way they were intended.
Used responsibly – meaning according to the instructions and various warnings on the product – Death Wish Coffee is just as safe as any other caffeine containing product.
Is Death Wish Coffee Any Good?
I don’t like value judgements like “good” and “bad,” it’s way less interesting for me as a writer and a reader.
However, I can tell you how other people tend to feel about the coffee brewed from Death Wish grounds and beans.
Coffee drinkers who favor strength over any other factor are a sure fit. Some of these people will feel like they’ve finally found a cup of coffee strong enough or their appetite.
Since even the lightest roast available in this line is relatively dark when compared to the competition, fans of darker roasts are more likely to think Death Wish Coffee is good than people who prefer lighter or fruitier coffees.
I’ve found that young people tend to like Death Wish Coffee more than middle-aged guys like me. That’s not an across-the-board reality, but in general a person’s age is the best guide to whether they’ll think this is a good coffee.
Death Wish Coffee Review – Aroma, Flavor, & Strength
Now to the most exciting part of the review – making, drinking, and appreciating the coffee.
Death Wish Coffee Aroma
Most coffee fans started their love affair as children, smelling the mysterious and rich aromas bubbling out of the kitchen while watching Saturday morning cartoons. The aroma is really everything when it comes to coffee – it prepares your mouth to enjoy the flavors, and for me, aroma is most of the coffee experience. It warms me on cold days, calms me in the summer time, and is a huge part of my own coffee fandom.
My biggest problem with Death Wish Coffee is the aroma. You can absolutely smell that typical brewing coffee aroma, and it fills the kitchen, but it’s watered-down. That’s the best way I can put it. It isn’t even as pleasing an aroma as a typical can of Folger’s or whatever.
I brewed both the Medium and the Dark Roast, and there was no discernible difference in aroma at all.
This extended to the cup, where I really had to dig my nose into it to get a deep and meaningful sense of the coffee’s aroma.
It smells quite sweet and there’s some muted dark cocoa in there, but not much else.
Death Wish Coffee Flavor
Since aroma is so much of what makes up our sense of taste, I wasn’t surprised to find that Death Wish Coffee fails to deliver a real kick-in-the-mouth of coffee flavor.
That’s what you’d expect from looking at the coffees. Even the Medium Roast is on the very dark side when compared to typical commercial roasts.
I didn’t notice much difference in flavor between the two roasts, except to say that the Medium Roast is even less robust than the typical darker roast versions.
Death Wish Coffee Strength
I have plenty of friends and fellow coffee fans for whom flavor and aroma aren’t a big deal, and for whom a coffee’s relative strength is its only meaningful feature.
This number includes my own parents and grandparents. If my maternal grandfather had access to Death Wish Coffee during World War II, we might have finished the war in the Pacific a month or two sooner.
If you’re the type of person that needs a huge dose of caffeine to get your mind going, this is the coffee for you.
I drank half a cup of each of the Dark and Medium roasts, and I was legitimately caffeinated.
I’m not talking a particularly speedy or druggy feeling – just a heavy dose of concentration and a little extra toe-tapping.
I also didn’t need another cup the rest of the morning, which saved me time and trips to the bathroom.
Death Wish Coffee Recommendations
At $19.99 a pound, I think Death Wish Coffee is a fine gift for someone who likes strong coffee, or a novelty coffee drinker interested in adding something wild to their collection.
I’m not sure it makes much sense as an everyday coffee product, though I think most doctors would agree that a cup of Death Wish makes a healthier study aid than whatever stimulant is currently making the rounds on college campuses.
If you want to add a big brand, high-end coffee with an interesting story to your collection, I suggest you do what I did, and spend somebody’s else’s money (thanks, boss!) and pick up a bundle so you can try both the Medium and Dark roast versions.
Conclusion
For the record, my wife thinks the Medium with a splash of milk is better than her usual drink at Starbuck’s. She likes lighter-flavored coffees but needs the caffeine jolt on tough days.
I’ve also read on forums that headache sufferers are using high-caffeine products like Death Wish Coffee to treat migraines. For some patients, high doses of caffeine can slow, halt, or even reverse some forms of headache.
In short – it may not be for everyone, but for some coffee fans it’s the perfect product.