Better than branded coffee – you save so much money with the cheap test winner

Opinions differ when it comes to coffee. For many, quality coffee is synonymous with expensive coffee. However, the last test by Stiftung Warentest shows that this is not always the case ( Issue 1/2022 ): Here cheap products from discounters dominate the podium. The experts examined a total of 15 coffee crema beans. In the sensory assessment, experts tested the coffee varieties for appearance, smell, taste, mouthfeel and crema. But the 15 products also had to hold their ground in terms of harmful substances, declaration and user-friendliness of the packaging.

It is surprising that the well-known brands of large manufacturers in particular cannot convince here. Instead, the discounters’ own brands secure the top spots.

Net coffee in 1st place

With a grade of 2.0, the test winner Cafèt Caffè Crema Barista von Netto Marken-Discount . According to the testers, the Arabica beans ensure the medium-strong smell with a stable crema. The sensory experts also taste a medium-strong body and a medium degree of bitterness and acidity. The coffee smells and tastes only faintly fruity, nutty and chocolatey and, according to Stiftung Warentest, has a medium-strong roasted aroma.

In the test, the test winner Cafèt Caffè Crema Barista from Netto Marken-Discount performed as follows:

This is how much you save with the test winner

Depending on how much coffee you drink and which bean you are currently using, you can save a lot of money with the test-winning beans. To illustrate this, we briefly compare the winner from Netto with the most expensive coffee in the test: The Caffè Crema from Speicherstadt scored “good” (grade 2.1) in the test and is therefore almost as good as the test winner from Netto (grade 2 ,0). The biggest difference here is the price: While the Cafèt Caffè Crema Barista beans from Netto around 9 euros per kilogram (to the shop) costs, you pay for that Speicherstadt Caffè Crema just under 18 euros per 500 grams of beans (to the shop) .

According to stats per capita sales of coffee by Germans is just under 5.4 kilograms a year. So if a person drinks the coffee from Netto for a year, they only pay around 49 euros for the beans. With branded coffee in organic quality, on the other hand, the costs amount to a proud 195 euros. In our model calculation save a total of 155.41 euros per year with the cheap test winner from the discounter .

Aldi, Lidl & Co.: Top coffee beans from discounters

Particularly surprising: The expensive organic beans from Speicherstadt also share second place with cheap discount beans. The following crema beans land on the podium:

The cheap winners are priced at eight to ten euros per kilogram. This makes them much cheaper than the Speicherstadt branded beans for around 39 euros per kilogram. You can find more information about the winners and losers in the test here with our CHIP colleagues .