BEST
TRADER JOE’S
COFFEE FOR

Cold & Hot Brew

This is a small-lot coffee, so grab it while it’s still in the store.

Subtle can be a nice way to talk about boring coffee, but it can also be wonderfully sophisticated. Give the Peru Cajamarca an ascot and cufflinks, because this coffee is great. Light-bodied and mellow, this medium roast starts with a delicate balance of tasty flavors. We got pear, vanilla, and rye in a wonderful combination with a little green apple acidity. The finish tapers off neatly, focusing on the malty rye. This is our top choice for pourover. As cold brew, Jacob called it a “low-pitched full orchestra”. We tasted honey, vanilla, and semi-sweet chocolate in a new exquisite balance.

The Peru Cajamarca is our top choice for this test lineup. Grab some before it’s gone.

This is one of the two small-lot coffees in our testing. These tend to move quickly on and off the shelves, so grab some now. I did.

Trader Joe’s Rwanda Isimbi is a light roast coffee suitable for special occasions. It’s sweet, with strong flavors of honey and berries and virtually no acidity. It’s medium-bodied, with some real substance to it, and leaves your mouth with a wonderful finish of raspberry. Overall, it’s strange and wonderful, almost more like an extraordinary tea than a coffee. As cold brew, it’s almost more impressive. The flavors of blueberry and honey come through even stronger, with interesting minor flavors breaking through with them, like hazelnut. The flavors are so big and interesting that I’ve treated it like a fortified wine and come up with some cocktails that showcase it, found below.

The Rwanda Isimbi is an absolute joy. Get it before it’s gone.

Trader Joe’s Organic Fair Trade Café Pajaro Blend is the best of the blends. This dark roast is bold and full-bodied, but there are real flavors to back that up. I taste a pleasant molasses-like sweetness, brown spices, and dried fruit. There’s a pleasant acidity too that holds onto the finish like flamed orange peel. I normally lean towards lighter roasts, but this is a great example of a dark roast with character. As cold brew, it falls off a touch. We still got the dried fruit and flamed orange peel flavors, but it just didn’t have the excellent balance it showed hot.

If you want one of the Trader Joe’s blends as your every day morning coffee, this is it.

Trader Joe’s Organic Fair-Trade Breakfast Blend is a low-key cup of tasty coffee that shines even brighter as a cold-brew. Tasted hot, it was a good, straightforward cup of everyday coffee. Light-bodied and mellow, we enjoyed a mild sweetness with a bit of milk chocolate flavor and a light, floral acidity. The finish was pleasant and held onto those floral flavors. Tasted as cold-brew, it really pushed those subtle flavors to the front of the line. The floral acidity moved a bit toward the fruity, with flavors of tart red apple.

This is a pretty good coffee to start you out in the morning hot, but at just $8 for 14 ounces, it’s one of the best cold brew values out there.

Trader Joe’s Organic Fair Trade Shade Grown Ethiopian needs all those descriptors on the outside of the can to make up for the blandness of the coffee inside. Everything about our test in the pourover was very subtle: a little sweetness of roasty sweet caramel, a little dried cherry, a little bright acidity, a little bit of herbal finish. There’s nothing the least bit bad about this coffee, but nothing to recommend it either. I’m looking for more from my morning mug. As cold brew, the Ethiopian blend perks up a bit. The sweetness is amplified, and complements the flavor of ripe red plum and orange peel. It’s still not that interesting, but it’s quite pleasant.

The Ethiopian blend is inoffensive but unimpressive overall, but might have a place in your kitchen as a subtle choice for cold brew.

French Roast is about as dark as it gets, and you see that right away when you open the can. This makes a bold, full-bodied brew with roasty-burnt flavors of baking chocolate and toasted almonds. There’s just a touch of cocoa-like acidity, and a slightly musty off-taste. The finish is burnt and somewhat unpleasant, with a little of the cocoa flavor coming through. The French Roast blend is tough for me to review, since I don’t especially like a roast this dark. I feel like you only taste the roast and lose the coffee. I like the Trader Joe’s version better than others I’ve tried, so I’ll call this a good example of the genre. As cold brew, it gets more interesting. It’s bold, earthy, and bitter, with the flavor of baking chocolate lingering on the finish. I’m not a big fan, but it’s got some style.

If you like the dark roasts, the Trader Joe’s French Roast blend will deliver hot or cold.

Trader Joe’s Organic Sumatra Coffee is another mid-priced mid-quality blends, with this one appealing to those who like a darker roast. It comes out big and bold in our V60 tasting with some real body. The flavor is mostly just the dark roastiness, with a little sweetness and acidity in the form of tart cherry and black plum. The finish is not great, with just the bitter elements of the roasty flavor hanging on. Our conclusion was that it was bold and boring, with no terribly substantial points for or against it. The flavors got much more interesting and surprising as a cold brew. The unpleasant finish was still there, but we tasted unripe fruit, olive oil, and a touch of nutmeg. I’d still describe it as pretty average, but with a little flair.

The Sumatra blend is a good value and worth tasting as a cold brew, but I can’t say it’s worth grabbing more than once when compared to the more interesting blends at the same price.

When espresso is in the name, maybe it’s not so smart to be using this blend for pourover and cold brew, but we wanted to be consistent in our testing. It’s worth noting that this blend includes Robusta beans instead of being 100% Arabica like everything else in the test. They add body and crema to espresso, but aren’t usually used in (good) regular coffee. The pourover is indeed bold and full-bodied, with flavors of dark chocolate, rubber, and tobacco. There’s a strong and unpleasant acidity, like unripe grapefruit. The finish has all the worst notes of rubber and grapefruit. The unsurprising conclusion is that this is not good for pourover. As cold brew, a lot of the roughest edges come off, leaving something much better. It’s still pretty one-dimensional, but the finish is much improved, with flavors of blackberry and orange peel.

I hope the Barista Espresso blend makes good espresso since it doesn’t make good pourover.

Sometimes when you simplify something down to the most basic elements you come to appreciate the foundational elements at play. Sometimes, though, you’re left with an empty cup of bland. Joe has an opening boldness, but nothing behind it. There’s a bit of cereal character in there, and maybe some citrus to the acidity, but this coffee is a big ‘ol cup of nothing. The finish is surprisingly agreeable, and more memorable than the coffee itself. It goes down a notch as cold brew, with the addition of green fruit flavors and an unpleasant metallic finish.

Joe can thank Joe Dark that it’s not at the bottom of the list, but it’s close enough to worst to still avoid.

One of the side effects of the pandemic is that I really haven’t had a bad cup of coffee in a year. Joe’s Dark Coffee was a rude reminder that the outside world isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Tasted hot, it had some ups to go with the downs. It’s bold and medium-bodied, and starts with a roasty sweetness, perhaps with some toffee. The acidity has a strong bitter lemon character, which lingers unpleasantly. The finish is just the unpleasant bitterness — not the way I want to start my day. The cold brew is much worse. The cold process strips it down to just the bitter and medicinal flavors, which linger in your mouth far too long.

Joe’s Dark is one of TJ’s signature blends, but if this was my signature, I’d change my name.

Some people like instant coffee. Some people like to be kicked in the balls. There’s no accounting for taste.

We hoped the Trader Joe’s Instant Cold Brew would be an upgrade on basic instant coffee that you could enjoy in a pinch. After all, real cold brew has a 16 hour lead time. It would be nice to get something 80% as good right away. This does not deliver. It’s just as bad as any other instant coffee — dry and musty with an aroma of cardboard. It’s just awful.