Yesterday we (a colleague and I) finished off our supply of coffee from La Brasiliana (in Varese) - and I was required this morning to purchase a temporary replacement.
I picked Lavazza Oro - a reasonable brand and the most expensive they had on offer in COOP. The flavor is thin and bitter - and at 8,80chf for 500g I am left feeling like I just had a night in the cells with Donkey Jeffrey - a 7'2", 400lb cross dresser from Queens with a penchant for posh English men.
(For reference the coffee is used at work with an Aeropress (a gift from a highly esteemed EF member for whom I will be eternally grateful) - a device which has the uncanny ability to make rather splendid coffee - receiving the stamp of approval from my Italian colleague)
Lavazza and Illy, amongst most 'big name' coffee's are burned. You're not tasting the bean, but rather the roast. It is not possible to make a coffee taste the same way year after year, with a selection of crops, unless you burn it. It's thin because it's flat as the gasses are no longer present and it's bitter because it's burned.
The roasting process for commercial coffee is that it is done at a very high heat, very quickly.
For proper coffee, buy beans and a grinder. Even the Brazilian yellow bourbon beans (7:- a bag) will surprise you.
Even better, buy thoughtfully sourced, slowly roasted beans from Rast, Schwarzenbach, Kaffischmitte or one of the proper purveyors of fine coffee in Switzerland and grind your own. You'll never look back.
Hot tip: Didu coffee (Ethiopian) from Schwarzenbach costs around 6.50 for 250g, but you'll struggle, unless tasting side by side, to distinguish it from Blue Mountain coffee, which will set you back around 5 times that.
Or you can stop being such a tight wad and get some of that Blue Mountain coffee. :-)
I always go for the fair trade home brand coffee in both COOP and Migro it's an arabica blend, thats easy on the pallet great for a big mug of brew. Its not so great if you like bitter Italian espressos. My favourite is coffee is Blue Mountain but its expensive, especially in Schwartzenbach.
Generally the coffee I do buy is slow roasted - as per my original post. None of the places you mention are open/conveniently located at 7am in the morning.
An order has been made for decent coffee (from La Brasiliana) - but it is in the lap of the gods how long it takes to arrive
I've learnt that different coffees work best when using different preparations.
As I go to London regularly, I buy nearly all my coffee from www.algcoffee.co.uk in Soho. Following the advice given in another forum I tried some Yirgacheffe beans from Ethiopia. Ground fine and made into an espresso it wasn't a patch on the much cheaper Formula Rossa i normally buy. At first I thought the beans were stale, but when I ground it course and used them in a cafetiere it was excellent.
So if you've bought expensive coffee and it does't taste good, try other preparation methods before throwing it.
I am no expert in coffee but in my office coffee machine used to be filled with Chicco d'Oro then there was two week trial of jacobs medaille d'or. Majority rejected Chicco d'Oro in favor of jacobs medaille d'or.
There is no good coffee you can buy at Coop, because coffee can't work in that kind of supply chain. Just go without until your favourite roaster opens his doors.