The Coffee Brand That's Seriously Dividing Costco Shoppers

The pros say that the key to drinking coffee is to sip it like wine, but you might not want to savor Mt. Comfort coffee from Costco, specifically the Peru roast. Or, maybe you would? Therein lies the quandary with this 2.5-pound bag of whole-bean coffee: some folks love it ... and some folks absolutely hate it. Taste is, of course, subjective, so we're not sure that there's a "right" answer as to whether you should buy these beans. Listening in on the online conversation about this product is not unlike watching a particularly contentious game of ping-pong.

"I got some Mt. Comfort Coffee (Peru) from Costco today, and honestly, I'm disappointed," reads the headline of a Reddit post. "It just tasted like a bland medium Columbian roast. It was almost like, the first sip was great, and every sip afterwards tasted worse and worse." On Costco's own website, a review entitled, "No ... Just no," ranted: "Store was out my regular Columbia Supremo. Tried this instead. God awful stuff. Choked down 2 sips, but could do no more. Just a terrible flavor." Several Reddit and Costco reviews complained of coffee tasting burnt or stale.

Meanwhile, also on Reddit: "Very good for espressos. The medium roast is excellent." And, on Costco, where 26/49 reviews are five-star: "Best coffee I've had from Costco in a long time! I used to buy from specialty roasters [...] This is the closest thing that I have had to what I would get from local roasters in San Diego. [...] [F]or the price, this coffee is an insanely good deal."

If you are suspicious about buying the Peru roast from Mt. Comfort, ask yourself a few questions. Do you have some of the gadgets needed for great home-brewed coffee? You can have the best beans in the world, but, if your brewing rig is sub-par, you may not get the best-quality coffee from it. You should also ask yourself what matters to you in a coffee. Mt. Comfort Coffee's Instagram brags that the company sells single-origin coffee beans, but some of the aforementioned Reddit comments mentioned that, if you held some of the beans in your hand, you would see that they vary in appearance, suggesting a blend. Perhaps lofty versus realistic standards are a big part of the major difference in opinion regarding this product? Again, because matters of taste are matters of taste, there isn't a great objective way to tell.

If you've bought this coffee — or any java, for that matter — and are experiencing buyer's remorse, there are a few tricks you can engage in to make your situation a bit better. Salt and cinnamon are the two-ingredient trick to upgrade cheap coffee, and you might find that these inexpensive, plentiful pantry staples make your subpar coffee drinkable. Knowing your own preferences will also help guide your decisions. Do you like drinking your coffee black, and letting its innate flavors stand on their own? You might do better to use caution than someone, for example, who takes cream and sugar with their cuppa joe.