Coffee Explanations

QUESTION: Why is Kona coffee so special? It’s really expensive and most places don’t even stock it, but I don’t understand what makes it good in the first place. — Howard E

ANSWER: 100 percent Kona coffee can be quite expensive, with some roasts going for $20-30 per pound, and other roasts going for as much as $100 per pound or higher. These prices are incredibly high for coffee, and yet Kona coffee flies off the shelf so quickly that it is often hard to find. But what makes Kona coffee so special? 

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by Lars H

I recently saw a TA truck stop on I-35 when I was driving from Denton to Dallas, so I stopped in to check out the coffee situation. Here’s what I found.

TA uses Bunn commercial coffee machines, as well as a Bunn grinder where they grind the beans just before brewing. Grinding just before you brew gives you a fresher, better tasting coffee because ground coffee can lose its flavor pretty quickly. This was a good sign!

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by Lars H

Recently I was up in north Dallas for an appointment, and after I finished, I did a quick Google map search to see if there were any nearby coffee shops I had not yet tried. That’s when PJ’s Coffee of New Orleans popped up on the map, just a couple of miles away from where I was.

I’d never heard of PJ’s Coffee before, and learned it was a franchise that was founded in New Orleans in 1978.

When I arrived, it appeared to heavily promote its drive through window, suggesting that it gets a lot of regular customers who are on their way to work or just on the go. I parked and walked inside, where there were several customers drinking coffee and sitting at the various tables.

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QUESTION: Does 7-11 have decaf coffee? There’s one on the way home from work and sometimes I like to drink a decaf in the afternoons instead of regular coffee. – Will G

CLEARLY COFFEE REPLIES: Yes, 7-11 serves fresh decaf coffee at most locations! I drove to one near me to check the situation out and bought one to taste it.

One thing that I noticed is that the grind and brew machine did not have a decaf option. However, they did have it in the regular Bunn commercial machines. I grabbed one at about 10 a.m. and it was hot and fresh.

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by Lars H

I was recently burned TWICE on Amazon, fooled into purchasing what seemed to be very reasonably priced bags of Kona whole bean coffee.

Instead of buying bags of 100 percent coffee beans that are Kona, it turned out that I had purchased bags of coffee that were really just blends that had a small or unstated percentage of Kona beans, mixed with other coffee beans grown elsewhere.

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QUESTION: My wife will only drink organic coffee because she says it’s healthier. Is she right? Is organic coffee healthier? — Evan K.

CLEARLY COFFEE REPLIES: Yes, organic coffee is without a doubt healthier for you than conventional coffee. Let’s take a look at all the ways that organic coffee wins out when it comes to healthiness. 

The organic farming standards that organic coffee is held to require a limited use of synthetic chemicals and restricted use of herbicides, pesticides, and artificial fertilizers. Because the soil doesn’t contain synthetic chemicals, organic coffee is likely to contain more vitamins and nutrients than conventional coffee.

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