How Do Six Top National Specialty Coffee Brands Stack Up?

If you’re a coffee drinker, you’re familiar with the coffees on every supermarket shelf, the ubiquitous bags you either look for or avoid, depending on your relationship to the many corporate brands available. A growing number of nationally available specialty coffee brands in the U.S. are on store shelves from Boston to Baton Rouge and Boise to Berkeley. And if you live in a small, rural town where one or more brands are unavailable locally, you can order online and have it shipped to your door in a week or less. Which national specialty coffee brands do consumers most encounter, and are they all equal in quality?

Instead of attempting to cup all available national specialty brands, we surveyed the market in major grocery stores in California, Oregon, Illinois, New York, Florida, North Carolina, and Texas to make sure we had a broad sense of national availability. We settled on the following six brands to explore: Counter Culture, Intelligentsia, La Colombe, Peet’s, Starbucks, and Whole Foods. (Yes, we intentionally left out Dunkin’ Donuts, Maxwell House, Keurig Dr. Pepper, Green Mountain, McCafe, and Lavazza, either because they don’t offer a range of quality or roast levels or because they specialize in pods or other non-whole-bean formats.)

We bought five coffees from each of the six brands: a popular light-roast blend; a popular medium-roast blend; a medium- or light-roast single-origin Colombia; and two featured special seasonal coffees (in this case, small-production single origins since the winter holidays are in the rear-view mirror). Three of us blind-cupped all 30 coffees, and we review here the two top-scoring from each brand — with one exception (see our note below the chart) — while offering some observations about what coffee consumers are likely to find when shopping for coffee at their nearest grocery store.

The chart below indicates the full score range:

Note: In the case of Starbucks, the two top-scoring coffees were locally available Reserve coffees, and while we list their scores in the chart above, we don’t review them in conjunction with this report because they aren’t widely available, in stores or online.

The 12 coffees that rose to the top were, not surprisingly, those that best preserved origin, and in some cases, varietal character; were complex and nuanced; and offered standout sensory characteristics in at least one category. We’ll look at each brand’s best offerings in the context of its range and then address some issues related to the genre overall, as well as things to know about each brand that might inform your buying decisions.

In alphabetical order, below are the brands whose coffees we cupped.

Counter Culture Coffee

Two of the better coffees we tasted and the only blend we rated above 90 come from Counter Culture Coffee, founded in Durham, North Carolina, in 1995 by Brett Smith and Fred Houk. Houk died in 2007, and Smith remains as president of the company to this day.

Our top-scoring coffee of the 12 we review here is Counter Culture’s Forty-Six (93), the darkest of the brand’s roasts but medium-roasted according to our Agtron reading. It hits all the pleasure points: rich chocolate notes, sweet florals, and complex nuts and citrus. A Guatemala/Ethiopia blend, it’s a deceptively simple coffee that’s more than the sum of its parts.

The Counter Culture Santafé (91) is not a blend but rather a single-origin washed Colombia that’s bright and sweetly tart and has a particularly plush, creamy body.

Intelligentsia Coffee

Intelligentsia Coffee, founded in Chicago in 1995 by ​​Doug Zell and Emily Mange, is now owned by Peet’s/JAB Holding Company. The two top-scoring Intellis in our cupping were the Rwanda Murundo People’s Farm (92) and the Ethiopia Kirite (89), both quite light-roasted — in fact, so light that the final score might have been hampered a bit by the underdevelopment. Co-cupper Jason Sarley said of the Intelligentsia profiles, “It’s like corporate has said to Intelligentsia roasters, ‘Be the polar opposite of Peet’s.’” (Both roasting companies are owned by the same parent company, JAB Holdings.)

Nonetheless, we found lots to like in each: The Rwanda is sweetly cirtrusy with balanced acidity, and the Ethiopia is tart-leaning and grounded by crisp chocolate notes. These are both what we refer to as “caveat coffees” in that their very light roast profiles will rule these coffees in or out for people depending on one’s preference of roast styles.

 

La Colombe Coffee Roasters

Founded in Philadelphia in 1994 by Todd Carmichael and J.P. Iberti, La Colombe Coffee Roasters is now owned by Chobani. Of the five La Colombe coffees we cupped, two single origins were the highest scoring: the medium-roasted Ethiopia Yirgacheffe (90) and the light-roasted Colombia San Roque (89).

The Ethiopia is delicately sweet-tart and gently floral, a bit muted but familiar in terms of origin character with its leading notes of stone fruit and almond. The Colombia is cocoa-toned, brightly crisp, and delivers a solid, accessible cup.

 

Peet’s Coffee

Peet’s was founded in Berkeley, California, in 1966 by Dutch-American entrepreneur Alfred Peet, who had worked in both the tea and coffee importing industries. After changing hands several times starting in 1979 — but not before Peet trained the future founders of Starbucks in 1971 — the company is now owned by JAB Holding Company.

The two top-scoring Peet’s coffees were the Sumatra and the Ethiopia Fancy, both coming in at 87. These are remarkably high scores for such dark roasts (38 and 39 on the whole-bean Agtron scale), as both coffees maintain their basic origin integrity despite some smoky-woody notes that tend to push down category scores and make coffees a bit rougher-edged. The Sumatra is earth-toned and sweetly savory, and the Ethiopia is sweetly smoky with interesting notes of scorched Meyer lemon zest and mesquite, a spice-toned wood.

 

Starbucks Coffee

The most ubiquitous of all the ubiquitous brands is, no doubt, Starbucks, the multinational American corporation founded in Seattle in 1971 by Jerry Baldwin, Zev Siegl and Gordon Bowker. The reason Howard Schultz’s name is more commonly associated with the brand’s global growth is that it was Schultz who, soon after he joined the company in 1982, made a fateful trip to Italy that inspired him to steer the business toward cafes, and the rest is history. Starbucks now has 29,000 retail stores in more than 80 locations worldwide.

The two best Starbucks coffees we tasted, by a long shot, were Reserve single origins, a Mexico Chiapas (88) and an Ethiopia West Arsi (87). Starbucks’ website describes the Reserve line as “the most extraordinary coffees Starbucks has to offer.” This is rather vague; in practice, it seems like the Reserve series tends to feature smaller lots of coffees, perhaps experimentally processed or from origins less often seen (think Yunnan Province, China), and “microblends.” But since the point of this exercise was to identify the best widely available coffees from national specialty brands, the two Reserve coffees don’t fit the bill, as they’re difficult to find outside the brand’s Reserve Roasteries and stores in Seattle, Chicago, New York, Milan, Tokyo, and Shanghai.

So, we’re left with slim pickin’s, not in terms of variety but in terms of coffees that performed well on the cupping table. The Sumatra (82) and Pike’s Place blend (78) were our remaining top scorers from the brand, both of which are acrid, astringent and downright burnt. (You know it’s a bad day when “cigarette ash” appears on two cuppers’ forms.)

Whole Foods Market

Whole Foods Market, which had a high-quality coffee program branded as Allegro from 1997 (when Whole Foods purchased Allegro’s Colorado roastery) until 2023, now brands all in-house coffee products as either Whole Foods Market or 365 (the store’s more affordable “daily” line of products). Roasting operations are still based in Colorado, and it’s nigh impossible to get information about the program. The brand’s new quality assurance program is run through the Coffee Quality Institute (CQI), which verifies that all single-origin coffees Whole Foods roasts score 86 or higher as green coffees on CQI’s Q scale.

We experienced a wide range of quality among the five samples we cupped, but the single origins clearly excelled over the blends. The Ethiopia (90) and the Kenya (92) both displayed balance, sweetness and origin character, and both were deftly roasted to a crowd-pleasing medium.

Oxygen and Roast-Dating

Two factors influence coffee quality that don’t get a lot of attention: oxygen and roast-dating. We have a machine at the Coffee Review lab that tests how much oxygen is in a bag of coffee. Roasted coffee stales as it oxidizes, making the brewed coffee taste muted or woody; the bag or other enclosure that holds the roasted coffee provides somewhat of an oxygen barrier but not a complete one. Very large companies like Starbucks and Peet’s have elaborate, expensive nitrogen-flushing systems that keep oxygen out of sealed coffee bags. All of the coffees we sourced from Starbucks and Peet’s for this report contained 0% oxygen. This is a good thing in terms of freshness, but it also allows those roasters to put “drink by” dates instead of “roasted on” dates on their bags. So, the coffee you buy off the shelf might have been roasted six months ago, which makes it less exciting than a freshly roasted coffee that includes a recent roast date on the bag.

The coffee bags of almost all small specialty roasters have oxygen above 0% because most small roasters can’t afford the equipment it takes to nitrogen-flush their coffees. And many smaller roasters choose compostable packaging, which is also true for some larger roasters, in this case, Counter Culture and Intelligentsia. Packaging that’s even somewhat permeable, as compostable bags are, means that the coffee inside needs to be consumed within a few weeks before it begins to stale. But compostable packaging, which reduces waste that goes to landfills, seems like a good tradeoff for the need to drink the bags’ contents in a timely fashion.

Aside from the Starbucks and Peet’s coffees, all at 0% oxygen, the brands we cupped contained oxygen levels between 7% and 18% (except two of the five Whole Foods coffees, which had 0% — Whole Foods’ coffee packaging process remains a mystery). La Colombe’s packaging has a recyclable cardboard outer layer and a plastic inner layer, which is neither a complete oxygen barrier nor compostable. Room air is around 21% oxygen, so the one-way valves on most coffee bags, designed to push carbon dioxide out and prevent oxygen from getting in, slow down the oxidation process but don’t prevent it. And some companies, in an effort to be even more environmentally friendly, forgo the one-way valve and simply let coffees de-gas and oxidize naturally. (Equator Coffee is one such brand.)

Transparency

If you’re a typical consumer shopping for coffee in a supermarket or online and you happen to be interested in transparency — regarding sourcing, processing, prices paid for green coffees, packaging, or labor practices — the only one of the six brands we have explored here that will give you satisfaction is Counter Culture Coffee. Counter Culture has published a transparency report each year since 2009, and its website lists the price paid to farmers as well as detailed information about its partnerships, employment practices, and philanthropic work.

Peet’s has relatively detailed information on its website about its progress toward measurable goals such as reducing its carbon footprint, increasing the sustainability of its packaging, and other important initiatives, but when you’re interfacing with the coffee as a consumer, not much of that gets translated. The hardcore transparency data live on the corporate site, and the consumer-facing site contains mostly marketing-speak.

La Colombe lists its initiatives through the years, as well as its waste diverted and its philanthropic contributions. But again, the customer doesn’t see a lot about who grew the coffee, and there’s little about processing and nothing about price transparency.

Intelligentsia’s bags sometimes list cooperatives that grew its single-origin coffees or specific regions the coffee was sourced from. And its website has a section devoted to its “Direct Trade” program, which, as elaborate as it is, isn’t actually all that detailed. And when details are provided, they are only moderately impressive. For example, the statement that Intelligentsia pays farmers fixed minimum prices is a positive, but the lowest price it will pay for a top-quality coffee is $3 per pound. This might be better than Fair Trade prices in some countries, but most small specialty roasters are paying much more per pound.

When you see an exceptionally low price on a mass-produced coffee from a big brand, that’s a red flag that farmers might not have been paid fairly for their green coffee. With transparency reports, such as Counter Culture’s listing of the price paid to farmers, you can be assured of a fair transaction.

Starbucks devotes a section of its website to sustainability, and the header on the landing page is “Giving More Than We Take.” This is marketing language at best, and a false claim at worst. There are many good proactive initiatives underway at the coffee behemoth, such as electric vehicle chargers at stores and solid data on reducing landfill. But Starbucks could do a lot more in terms of both sustainability and transparency, starting with its packaging, which is largely landfill material.

Whole Foods 365 coffees are certified to meet one of the following third-party standards: Rainforest Alliance, Fair Trade USA, or Fairtrade International. I couldn’t find any information related to the Whole Foods Market coffee line specifically. Coffee is folded into the company’s larger sustainability report, which focuses more on non-coffee products.

The Heart of the Matter

One obvious takeaway is that single origins, by and large, performed much better in our cupping than blends where these six national specialty brands are concerned. It might not be a coincidence that the larger and more corporate the brand, the less basic transparency information is available to the consumer — information such as sourcing specifics and price paid for the green coffee. But the central questions here are how important it is to you to a) shop local; b) know where your coffee comes from; c) have access to pricing transparency; and d) choose compostable packaging.

This has been an interesting exercise, and we found several coffees to recommend if you’re shopping for your daily grind in a supermarket setting. But if you’re buying online, most small specialty roasters ship nationwide, and there’s a better chance that you’ll learn more about the coffee you’re buying via this relationship than mail-ordering from a national brand. And, of course, if you can shop local, thereby supporting a small business and reducing your own carbon footprint, that is the best possible way to buy coffee. We already knew this, of course, but it’s sometimes helpful to be reminded.

If you’re looking for the best of both worlds, visit our Best Value Coffees. Here, you can find attractive pricing on high-quality coffees from smaller roasters, which usually offer greater transparency about sourcing, roast dating, prices paid to farmers, and other business practices.