When it comes to coffee on supermarket shelves, we found that you get what you pay for. And whether we were testing whole beans or ground coffee, the playing field was level: Whole beans were ground using a supermarket-style mill to match the fineness of the preground varieties, and all coffees were tasted black.

Flavored coffees were excluded from this road test due to the enormous number of varieties and flavors available. The remaining brews fell into four categories.