Surviving Colorectal Cancer, Part 25
Help!! I’m Trying to Identify Affordable Gourmet Coffee Beans Online.
My followers on Medium know that I’m trying to drink gourmet coffee from around the world. It’s #3 on my cancer survivor bucket list. I want something more exotic than the cans of Colombian dark roast coffee that have been the favorite in our house for years.
But how can I find gourmet coffee beans to buy online?
CoffeeReview.com seems like a good starting place to identify the best gourmet beans in the world. The site has been around since 1997 and has posted reviews of almost 2,000 different coffees.
Based on their reviews of the 30 top coffees of 2023, I passed up the #1-rated Colombian coffee roasted in Wisconsin. The “blackberry jam and frankincense” qualities didn’t appeal to me.
I liked the review of the #2 coffee from Hula Daddy roaster in Kona, Hawaii, with notes of “vanilla orchid, pistachio, and cocoa nib.” I enjoyed some Kona coffee years ago on a business trip to the big island, and I liked what I read about Hula Daddy on its website. I’ll never get back to Hawaii so I tried to buy the 8-ounce bag of beans. But I’m in Mexico and the website only offers shipments to the United States and Japan.
The #3 rated coffee on the 2023 list is from Panama and roasted in Taiwan. The review said it was “immensely sweet,” which is not my taste. And I noticed a BIG negative for me — The review says the coffee beans cost NT 2,500 for 20 grams.
What? That’s the equivalent of $77 USD.
I thought the price was a mistake so I sent an email to CoffeeReview.com asking for clarification. Kim Westerman, the managing editor, responded the same day and said the price was correct.
Westerman also included a hyperlink to a news story from 2023 reporting that 25 kilograms of the coffee beans sold at auction for a record price of $10,005 per kilogram, And Westerman said there are reports that some Japanese coffee houses charge $250 for a single cup.
WOW!! I have to tell you right now I would NEVER EVER pay $77 for 20 grams of beans. And my wife would think I was completely crazy if I ordered a $250 cup of coffee.
I’m continuing to read reviews on the list of 30 best coffees of 2023 and I may order some beans that are more affordable. If you’ve brewed any of the coffee beans on the list, please post a comment about your experience to help guide me.
Over the years, I always wanted black coffee without sweeteners or milk or anything else. That’s because I want to taste the coffee and not the extras. When I went to Starbucks, I ordered brewed black coffee with nothing extra. Their default medium roast black coffee is called Pike Place Roast, which is a blend of Latin American coffees.
Since my doctors cleared me to drink coffee after surviving advanced-stage colorectal cancer, I’ve started drinking three or four cups of specialty coffee every day and searching for gourmet brands to buy online. The combined experience of drinking and searching seems to improve my ability to cope with cancer fatigue and “chemo brain.”
I’ve also created an Instagram account to seek recommendations from individuals for gourmet coffees. I’m posting individual reviews of the 30 best coffees of 2023 and soliciting comments from coffee lovers who have brewed and tasted the coffees. Here’s the link: https://www.instagram.com/onlinegourmet01/?hl=en
As a USA expat living in Mexico, I’ve begun drinking Mexican specialty coffee from high-altitude plantations in the tropical jungle near Veracruz. That choice was easy because my wife’s youngest son gave us a 1kg bag of ground medium roast as a present.
Now, our daily late-morning brunch at about 10:30 includes that coffee, which comes from beans grown on a small plantation at 1,290 meters elevation outside Huatusco near Veracruz, Mexico. The beans are roasted by El Ronconcito Del Café, a family small business in Guadalajara. The ground medium roast for our Cuisinart drip coffeemaker is just right for my wife and me. Unfortunately, the coffee isn’t yet available online.
I prefer a stronger coffee following our main meal in the mid-afternoon at about 3:30, sometimes with a little dark chocolate. For that, I use an Italian stovetop single-cup coffeemaker to brew French roast organic beans that I grind. The beans come from a cooperative of small farmers from Chiapas, Mexico, in plantations at 1,600 meters elevation. I bought a 1kg bag of beans online from Amazon.com.mx.
More recently, I bought a 780g bag of medium roast beans from La Parroquia de Veracruz, a famous coffee house and restaurant that attracts thousands of tourists every year. Maria and I remember drinking coffee there during a vacation years ago. The bag says the coffee comes from the Huatusco area and the description proudly exclaims in Spanish that it is the most famous coffee in Mexico. It’s available online from the restaurant store.
Now, we have bags of all three Mexican specialty coffees (see photo above). To start each morning at about 7:30, I’ve drifted toward using my stovetop coffeemaker to brew a cup of coffee from La Parroquia de Veracruz and often have a Mexican oreja with it.
Neither my wife nor I are qualified to judge coffee, but we know what we like. Both of us agree that the ground medium roast from El Rinconcito Del Café makes coffee that tastes better than the other two coffees we grind from beans.
However, every cup of the three specialty coffees makes me feel better physically and improves my mood. None of them is a “gourmet” coffee judged by experts like the people at CoffeeReview.com, but they taste good to me.
I want to try as many gourmet coffees as possible from around the world. But as an 80-year-old colorectal cancer survivor, my cancer ordeal has weakened me and I don’t get out much anymore.
That’s why I’m hoping readers on Medium will help me identify gourmet coffee beans I can buy online.
If you have a favorite gourmet coffee, put the brand name in your comments and post a short description of how you liked the coffee. And don’t forget to include a hyperlink to buy it online.
Thanks!!
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About me: In June of 2022, at age 78, I was diagnosed with Stage IIIc colorectal cancer. After five months of aggressive chemotherapy and radiation, I had successful surgery in January of 2023 to remove the tumor followed by successful surgery in May to reverse my colostomy.
My oncologist and my wife both urged me to write about my experience as a cathartic way to come to terms with being diagnosed and treated for advanced colorectal cancer and trying to recover. To celebrate my 80th birthday in October of 2023, I began posting articles on Medium.
I hope my articles will motivate people to have thorough colon cancer screening starting in their 40s and continuing into their 80s and also help other colorectal cancer patients deal with everyday life while trying to survive five years or more.
If you like the articles, clap a few times, leave comments, and share them with people you care about. Thanks!
