The Good: Appropriately caffeinated, Good aroma, Powerful taste, Reasonably priced!
The Bad: More expensive than other Folgers blends, Very bitter, Creamers completely dilute its flavor!
The Basics: Folgers Gourmet Supreme Coffee is an initially impressive dark coffee that fails to defend itself against . . . coffee creamers?!
Every now and then, I am stopped by a product that just makes me laugh. Usually, I see humor in things most other people do not, but I could not help but finding Folgers Gourmet Supreme coffee to be funny. Yes, a dark blend coffee made me actually laugh out loud, something that Folgers Black Silk coffee (reviewed here!) did not do for me. The Gourmet Supreme coffee, though, made me laugh because it is like the archetypal bully . . . in coffee form. One taste of this coffee knocked my tastebuds around and redefined what bitter was for them. So, I added a splash of creamer, in this case International Delight Chocolate Caramel creamer. I did not even use excessive amounts! The result? The coffee flavor from the Gourmet Supreme coffee was almost entirely gone. Like standing up to a bully and the jerk running away, Gourmet Supreme puts up a good front, but folds to the forces of even mild creamers!
I found that funny. Even so, Gourmet Supreme is neither bad, nor disappointing. It is, however, a lot of bark and bite for black coffee drinkers, and a surprisingly docile blend for those who add sweetened creamers to their coffee.
Basics
One of the dominant coffee roasters and distributors in the United States, Folgers produces a number of blends. Gourmet Supreme is one of the two darkest blends by Folgers that I have found in stores and for the 1 pound, eleven point eight ounce plastic container, I have more often than not found it at about $3 more per canister than the same size, lighter blends. Gourmet Supreme is dark, rich, and flavorful, but Folgers will make you pay for that! This is a 27.8 oz. plastic canister of ground coffee. Because it is not whole bean, no grinding is required. With a plastic lid that one simply lifts off, the Gourmet Supreme Coffee is easily protected from absorbing scents of other foods. The container has a nice grip to the side of it, to make the otherwise bulky container easy to handle.
Gourmet Supreme Coffee is an aromatic blend that smells potently of coffee beans and it is a caffeinated blend.
Ease Of Preparation
Gourmet Supreme Coffee is remarkably easy to prepare, no advanced culinary degrees necessary! First, open the can. Folgers Gourmet Supreme Coffee is vacuum sealed when first purchased, but it has only a foil seal to get through to break the vacuum seal. After removing the foil seal, procure a scoop (not included) and measure out one heaping tablespoon for every two cups of water in your coffee maker. Gourmet Supreme Coffee is intended for automatic (drip or percolating) coffee makers, like my Hamilton Beach coffee maker (reviewed here!). This is NOT an instant coffee. As a result, it needs to be brewed.
Consult your coffee maker's instructions for how to brew the coffee. However, as far as the basics go, you'll need a coffee filter, like the Melita coffee filters (reviewed here), which you put the Gourmet Supreme Coffee in and then brew through your coffee maker. The directions recommend making a pot at a time and refrigerating the beans to prevent them from absorbing other flavors and aromas.
Taste
Folgers Gourmet Supreme Coffee has a very woody, somewhat burnt aroma to it. More than any other dark coffee I have tried of late, the Gourmet Supreme does not smell simply like coffee. This beverage has a distinctly earthy scent to it that smells less like coffee and more like a campout.
On the taste front, Gourmet Supreme Coffee is undeniably coffee-flavored. This is a bitter, rich, drink that smacks the tastebuds upside the consumer’s head and demands that they wake up! The flavor is, appropriately, that of super-concentrated coffee.
With sugar, Gourmet Supreme Coffee becomes only minimally sweeter. Sugar simply seems to make it taste somewhat more flavorful, slightly less bitter, but (oddly) more like coffee in my mind. In an interesting twist, I discovered that coffee creamers easily hold their own with the Gourmet Supreme and three of the liquid creamers I have actually managed to overwhelm the coffee flavor of this beverage!
The Gourmet Supreme Coffee leaves, predictably, a powerfully bitter, slightly dry, aftertaste in the mouth. The aftertaste only lasts for about thirty seconds to a minute before it dissipates.
Nutrition
This is coffee, not something that appears on the nutrition pyramid! Folgers Gourmet Supreme Coffee does not contribute anything to one's daily recommended allowance of anything. In fact, the canister does not have any ingredients, so I am forced to assume all that is in this blend is coffee beans, which would fit what it tastes like.
This is a caffeinated blend, though and it feels like it! This has enough caffeine to pop one's eyes open between the taste, aroma and caffeine. Because it is a caffeinated coffee, it appears to not have undergone any of the chemical processes that sometimes cause complications in decaffeinated coffees.
Storage/Clean-up
Gourmet Supreme Coffee ought to be stored sealed in its container with the top firmly on. Coffee is known to absorb flavors of food nearby it, so keeping the top on is highly recommended. There are different schools of thought on refrigerating open coffee and I have a very clean refrigerator with a lot of ways to segregate coffee, so I tend to come down on the side of refrigerate it. Stored properly, this coffee might have easily made it to the July 27, 2013 expiration date found on the bottom, but we didn’t let it survive that long!
After brewing, coffee grounds ought to be disposed of. This does not seem like an ideal coffee to make a second pot with (second brewings I attempted came out 1/2 to 5/8 as potent as the first brewing) unless one is in a household with a number of people some who like powerful coffee and others who like powerful water. These grounds may be thrown in the trash when used or put in a compost pile, if available. Coffee grounds make great compost and I swear the pine tree I've been putting these grounds around has shot up since I started caffeinating the ground around it!
Overall
Folgers Gourmet Supreme Coffee is a surprisingly inconsistent coffee, but for people who like flavorful black coffees, it certainly is worth buying. For those who like flavored coffees, this might be too weak when your additives are added. On the balance, though, it is a good coffee blend.
For other coffee reviews, please visit my reviews of:
Tim Horton’s Fine Grind Coffee
Starbucks Café Estima
Kahlua Mocha Coffee
7.5/10
For other food or drink reviews, please check out my index page by clicking here!
© 2012 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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