Americans really love their coffee.
Eight out of 10 of us drink coffee and 61 percent of us drink it every day.
In a search for the best cup of joe, ShopSmart Magazine hired two "cuppers," also known as professional coffee tasters. From whole bean and ground to single cup pods, they brewed their way through 37 different specialty and popular store coffee blends.
"We were looking for good qualities. Like fruity, floral, sweet ... like caramel or chocolate. We were also looking for bad qualities like burnt or ashy or underripe flavors," said Lisa Freeman, editor in chief at ShopSmart.
With spoons in hand they sniffed and slurped their way from the most expensive to the cheapest.
"Our taste tests are always blind, meaning the tasters don't know what brands they're testing until after the tests are over so they can't be influenced by brand names," said Freeman.
It took 4 hours each day, with breaks, of course, to rest their taste buds.
"All of the coffee we taste-tested was labeled medium body and the experts tasted it black, no sugar, no milk," said Freeman.
Two weeks later, they were done. The scores were tallied up for the winning cups.
Here are the results by category:
Best whole bean coffee: Allegro Organic Continental Blend
Best ground coffee: Starbucks House Blend
Best "k-cup": Peet's House Blend
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