Let's be real for a second. If you've ever bought an $8 bag of coffee at the grocery store and found it tasted like actual dirt, there’s a reason for that. It's not you; it's the coffee. The truth is, quality costs, and there’s no way around it. Today, let’s break down why some coffee just isn’t worth it—and why you, the coffee lover, deserve so much better.
The Commodity Coffee Trap
Cheap coffee is a trap—a convenience play that ultimately costs you in flavor and experience. Some of the old-school roasters got caught up in the commodity game, driven to sell coffee for as cheap as possible, cramming those aisles at the grocery store with their $8 bags. But think about this: how can you expect great quality when the whole point is to be the cheapest on the shelf?
The answer is, you can't. You can’t deliver a cup with nuance, flavor, and depth for $8. The economics just don’t add up, especially when you consider the actual cost of specialty-grade coffee.
The Real Cost of Quality Coffee
Let’s do some simple math. Most specialty-grade coffee starts at around $4-$5 per pound for the green, unroasted beans. This doesn’t even account for the 15% moisture loss during roasting. Add to that labor costs, overhead, packaging, shipping, and—oh yeah—a small margin of profit to keep the lights on. Suddenly, that $8 bag sounds more like a gimmick than a genuine attempt at good coffee.
At Ember Coffee, we take pride in our air roasting process—a method that ensures even heat distribution and highlights the true, complex flavors of our beans. It’s not about cutting corners; it’s about celebrating what coffee can be. That’s why we’ve earned our reputation as Minnesota’s Best coffee shop and why we’re not interested in the commodity game. We believe you deserve something better.
Why Cheap Coffee Tastes Like Dirt
If your coffee tastes like butt or feels like it’s wrecking your stomach, there’s a reason for that too. Commodity-grade beans are often grown for yield, not quality, which means they’re picked green, improperly processed, and jammed into big roasting machines that char them to a bitter crisp. It’s no wonder that all you taste is smoke and burnt rubber—it’s the flavor of shortcuts.
At Ember Coffee, we know the difference between roasting for flavor and roasting to mask flaws. Cheap roasters lean heavily on dark roasting because it hides all the defects. With our artisan roaster approach, we roast to enhance the bean’s natural qualities—whether it’s the bright citrus of a washed Ethiopian or the buttery caramels of our 10,000 Lakes Blend.
A Challenge to Roasters
To my fellow roasters out there: we can do better. Let’s step away from the race to the bottom, where the goal is to crank out the cheapest product we can. Let’s put the customer first and make coffee that respects the process, the farmers, and the people drinking it.
Every bag of coffee is a story. It’s the story of where it was grown, how it was harvested, and the care that went into roasting it. When you reduce that to a dollar figure—an $8 bag—it’s like taking a beautiful book and tearing out half the pages. We owe it to ourselves, our craft, and our customers to do better.
The Ember Difference
At Ember Coffee in Big Lake, we’ve always taken a different path. We roast with intention, using our air roasting technology to achieve the kind of precision and consistency that you simply can’t get in mass-market roasting. That’s why we’ve become an award-winning coffee shop—because people can taste the difference when care and quality come first.
If you’ve been drinking cheap coffee and wondering why it doesn’t quite sit right, consider this your invitation to experience something better. Specialty-grade coffee isn’t just about snobbery or spending more money. It’s about tasting what coffee is meant to be—a drink that’s rich, complex, and satisfying, not one that tastes like an ashtray or upsets your stomach.
Put Quality First
The next time you’re in the grocery store and tempted to grab that $8 bag, take a second to think about the real cost. You deserve more than shortcuts. You deserve the kind of coffee that’s crafted with care—where every bean is roasted for flavor, not for convenience. That’s the kind of coffee we make at Minnesota's Best—and the kind of coffee you’ll find at Ember Coffee.
Let’s change the way we think about coffee. Let’s demand more from our morning cup—whether that means stopping by our Big Lake coffeeshop or ordering a bag of freshly roasted beans online. Because life’s too short for bad coffee.
