Best Coffee, Best Coffee Maker

Rating products and services can be kind of a mug's game, but Consumer Reports gets it close to right most of the time. Even if there is better stuff out there than whatever they rate as "Best," or worse stuff than what they rate as "Worst," if you follow their recommendations you'll certainly avoid buying junk.

With that in mind, their testers have some ideas for you about coffee. Eight O'Clock Coffee won out over 19 other brands with a "very good" rating. CU described the taste as a "complex blend of earthy and fruity," which one hopes doesn't mean the beans went into the package unwashed. The competition included top national sellers like Folgers and Maxwell House (admittedly, these are sort of the beverage equivalent of cardboard targets), and specialty blends like Caribou Coffee's Colombia Timana, Kickapoo Coffee's Organic Colombia, and Starbucks' Colombia Medium.

Any home brewing java junkie knows the coffee maker is almost as important as the coffee bean. Here again, CU has it covered. They give the nod to the Michael Graves 12-Cup Coffeemaker as having the best combination of price ($40) and quality (high water temperature, programmability). Second place went to the Melitta Take2 at an even more affordable $25.

Of course, none of this matters if you're satisfied with a teaspoon of instant stirred into a cup of nearly boiling water.