And I like quality coffee. I never drink "common" brands like Maxwell House or Folgers. I did have a brief dalliance with Great Value (the Walmart store brand) Donut House coffee or whatever it's called but I suspect that the supplier is actually a premium one that Walmart disguises with its brand (they do this for several items, I guess to fulfill some purchase obligation contracts or something, idk?). My favorite is the quite pricey Swedish brand Gevalia. As you can see in the pic below, it even has a fancy umlaut over the e but I'm not going to bother to look up how to print that here so you get a regular letter.
But my usual jam these days is Cameron's coffee. It's a brand I can only find on Amazon. It apparently is a Minnesota coffee roaster and I think it's just as good as the hoity-toity brands. It has, for years now, gone for $10.98 for a 32 ounce bag. I order it regularly. Alexa keeps bugging me to put it on an auto order schedule but I don't want to order anything through her, first of all; and secondly, I buy this with my SNAP benefits and I don't think that can be auto ordered since I have to verify each order with my PIN number. But the the big thing about ordering shit through Amazon is the fact that you never know when they might just up and change their price. And sometimes it's a big change...
Here's today's pricing when I went to reorder my Cameron's:
That's right, it went up $5.30 to $16.28! That's $8.14 a pound!
But, as you'll see, even at that now almost 50% inflated price...that's nothing...
I was on a mission. What happened to my coffee? Is it just this brand? Is it 'cause it's made in Minnesota? Is it 'cause FOX NEWS says Tim Walz is a crook and he squandered a billion Minnesota taxpayer dollars on Nigerian prince scams? Tim? Tim? Did you fuck with my coffee price?
Let's listen to MSNOW (the new MSNBC for those out-of-the-loop). Well they'd put the blame on, who else, Trump and his fucking tariffs! Didn't he put crazy-high tariffs on Brazil? Doesn't he have a beef with Colombia because Colombia is saying that he shouldn't be bombing these "drug boats" coming from Venezuela since Venezuela isn't the source of the cocaine going to the US? (I guess Colombia should know, right?) And because of these "policies" with these South American countries, you know, the very ones coffee comes from, the supply is pinched and the prices are hiked? Well, that may not be the right answer either.
I mean, with news headlines, right next to each other, I shit you not, what the fuck are we supposed to believe?
Here's a non-partisan economic chart showing coffee prices over the decades:
Anyway, for the here and now, I'm running low on my java supply. I have maybe a week left of my Cameron's so I had to look to another option.
I checked out another fav of mine, also purchased occasionally from Amazon. Now, this brand, like Starbucks, is very full of itself so it's never cheap. But THIS crazy?!
For comparison, a can this size of plain old Maxwell House used to go for maybe about $8 (now it's up too, BTW). So the craziness is everywhere.
I had to check out my local Publix online flyer to see if they had any sales. They did, but, I saw, what I assumed was an egregious typo:
I dressed my ass up and got over to Publix. Community Coffee is on my fav list so I'll get it if it's at a decent price. I mean, a BOGO is a BOGO. It's got to be a deal, right? When I got there, I found MANY brands of coffee on BOGO special. Woo hoo, right? Well, you know Publix and the games they play. First, the price in the ad? Yes, in fact, some of the higher-count K-Cup boxes are priced at over thirty fucking dollars! Next, the selection of the popular blends of coffees go quickly off the shelves and do they restock it to fill that gap quickly? Nope. You get the left-overs. Publix, where shopping is whatever they tell you it is, bitch!
Here's what I grabbed. I'm stocking up.
Here's what I paid:
Community Coffee, Breakfast Blend, (2) 12-oz bags: $14.19
Tim Hortons, Caramel Toffee, (2) 12-oz bags: $11.99
Ugh. Great. The Community Coffee, even on BOGO, was more expensive than the jacked-up new price of my favorite Cameron's. At least the Timmy's is a good deal, I guess. They, of course, didn't have any "regular" varieties left so I had to get this flavored shit. Now that I'm drinking my coffee with creamers (which they had a sale on them as well so I picked up several more) it should be okay. Oh, and while I was at Publix, I glanced over at the price of the Gevalia brand I mentioned at the top of this post...it was NOT on sale. It was $14.99 for a TEN ounce bag.
Oh, BTW, in the background of the picture above you can just make out my little red ceramic teabag holder things that I keep on my table as decoration. They've been there for six years. The teabags are even much older than that. I don't really drink much tea, but if shit be gettin' crazier...I may need to switch.