Cafe Bustelo - An Experiment in Super-Cheap Coffee

by Bruce Watson, Posted Feb 28th 2009 @ 10:00AM

In my ever-increasing attempts to save money, I recently decided to cut back on my coffee expenditures. While I get most of my coffee from my local corner store, where it only costs $1.20 a cup, even that price starts to add up, particularly when I am hard-pressed to come up with something to write about and the caffeine monster beckons.

Choosing coffee isn't such an easy thing. I've tried quite a few brands, generally with mixed success. My wife swears by Illy, an Italian coffee that, I must admit, is damn near perfect. Still, at $12 per can, it's pricey and, given that I am a cream-and-sugar guy, its transcendent wonder is somewhat wasted on me.

I recently retried Café Du Monde, a New Orleans chicory-enhanced coffee that I used to love in college. I don't know if my tastes have changed, or if the coffee has gone downhill, but the last can I bought tasted like incinerated cat turds. Seriously, I don't want to be mean, but it was positively unholy. Bru, on the other hand, is a chicory blend with a solid taste and a good price point; unfortunately, it is sometimes hard to come by. If I'm going to get addicted to a brand, I need a consistent supply!

With that in mind, I recently tried Cafe Bustelo, the unofficial coffee of the Dominican neighborhood in which I live. At $3.39 for 10 ounces, it's got a great price. Another nice touch is the message on the packaging, which appears in both English and Spanish. The English version is short, and contains the standard boilerplate about vacuum packing, perfect flavor, and so forth. The Spanish translation, on the other hand, states that Bustelo is the preferred coffee of the great Hispanic "colony" in the United States. As I like a bit of nationalistic jingoism with my caffeine, the Spanish message was a big selling point.

Bustelo claims to be an espresso blend, but, while the grind is finer than most, I wouldn't characterize it as full espresso. The taste, on the other hand, is very rich. Generally, I double the amount of coffee that the manufacturer suggests, but in the case of Bustelo, I go with a level scoop for every eight ounces. Even so, the coffee has a nice dark color and an intense taste. While it tastes a little too burned for my palate, I feel like it's better to be too burned than to be too weak.

All in all, Bustelo probably won't end up being my coffee of choice, but it will definitely suit me well until the right one comes along. In a pinch, I'd rank it higher than many of the more-expensive coffees I've tried. Best of all, the Spanish propaganda goes nicely with cream and sugar.

Filed Under: Coffee
Tags: america, bru, Cafe bustelo, CafeBustelo, cheap coffee, CheapCoffee, comfort food, illy

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Reader comments (Page 2 of 2)

3-20-2009 @2:15PM tc said... Cafe Du Monde is a perfect for iced vietnamese coffee. Not my drink of choice for any other use.

Costco has seasonal whole bean sumatra for about $10 for 3 pounds. Comes pretty near Peet's Sumatra, and is a whole heck of a lot less expensive. Even comes close to Bustelo in pricing and is a whole heck of a lot better tasting.
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