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Brand review · 4 min readCoffee Gems coffee review
What Coffee Gems sells, what it costs against the rest of the market, and who should buy it.
Coffee Gems sells 14 coffees in the UK and the cheapest comes out at 57p a cup, which is less than most of the ground coffee we track. Cheap coffee is easy to find and hard to trust, so the useful question is not whether it is cheap. It is what the range actually contains, and whether the bag doing the heavy lifting is the one you would want.
Short answer
Bright, fruity coffee for people who already know they like it, at less than most people pay.
Cheaper than 78% of the ground coffee we track
- Tastes
- Bright and floral, noticeably acidic
- Strength
- Mild
- Best for
- Filter and pour-over
- Valuecup price vs the format median
- 4/5
- Easy to likefrom the roast profile
- 4/5
- Good for beginnersblend, roast and pack size
- 2/5
Cheapest cup£0.57across 14 products
Against the market−20%vs the ground median
Two cups a day£7.94a week, £1.95 less than typical
Mostly roastedLightfloral, citrus
Buy it ifyou finish a 2kg bag inside six weeks
Skip it ifCoffee Factory at 58p would do
What kind of roaster this is
Coffee Gems sells whole bean and ground in the UK, and we track 14 of their coffees, in 2kg and 1kg.
Coffee Gems is a blender: 71% of the range we can classify is blended rather than sold as a named origin. That is a choice, not a shortcut. A blend can be rebuilt season to season to taste the same, which is what you want if you buy the same coffee every month and would rather it did not move under you. The buying reaches 8 countries across the range, which is a wide book for a brand this size. The roasting spans 4 of our five levels, so there is a genuine choice to make inside the range rather than one house style applied to everything. Every bag we list is a kilo or more, which is what pushes the per-cup figure down and also what makes this a bad fit if you drink slowly, since coffee is past its best four to six weeks after roasting. Colombia turns up in 43% of the range, so it is fair to call that the backbone of what they buy.
Formats and origins
What Coffee Gems sources and sells. Each one is a live filter across every brand we track.
What Coffee Gems coffee costs
The range runs from 57p to £3.17 a cup across 14 products. That is a 5.6× spread inside a single brand, which is why "is Coffee Gems expensive" is the wrong question; the right one is which bag you pick. The cheapest is The Pilgrim in the 2kg, and the dearest is Cerro Azul in the 1kg.
| Product | Format | Size | Per cup | Per kg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Pilgrim | — | 2kg | £0.57 | £31.50 |
| Summer Daze | ground | 2kg | £0.57 | £31.50 |
| Humble Juan | — | 2kg | £0.57 | £31.50 |
| Don Joaco | — | 2kg | £0.57 | £31.88 |
| La Mariposa | — | 2kg | £0.58 | £32.38 |
| Gato Bandido | — | 2kg | £0.58 | £32.38 |
| La Jaquima | — | 2kg | £0.61 | £33.75 |
| Sakubel | — | 2kg | £0.65 | £36.25 |
| Kagumo Aa | ground | 2kg | £0.66 | £36.75 |
| El Cansado | — | 2kg | £0.73 | £40.75 |
| Oso Perezoso | — | 2kg | £0.77 | £43.00 |
| Finca Florestales | — | 2kg | £1.17 | £65.00 |
Bags themselves run £63.00 to £176.00. Ignore that column. A bigger bag costs more and almost always costs less per cup, which is the only number that follows you home.
The one to buy
If you buy one thing from Coffee Gems, buy Summer Daze. At 57p a cup it comes in around 20% under the median for ground coffee, and that is measured against every brand in our catalogue rather than against Coffee Gems's own list prices. Nothing else in the range gets close on that test.
What that costs over a year
How much coffee do you drink?
- Coffee Gems£0.57 per cup£414
- Typical ground£0.71 per cup, our median£516
At 2 cups a day, Coffee Gems costs £102 less a year than the typical ground coffee we track. That is the same coffee habit, bought better.
How Coffee Gems tastes
We have not tasted Coffee Gems, so we are not going to invent a tasting note. A flavour score we did not earn would be worth less than none, and this section would be the easiest place on the site to quietly make one up. What we can show you is measured: where every coffee in the range sits on our own five-point roast scale, and which origins go into it. Roast is the strongest single predictor of whether a cup arrives bright and fruity or dark and chocolatey, so it is the closest honest answer to what this brand is like to drink.
How Coffee Gems roasts
Every coffee standardised onto our own five-point scale rather than the roaster's. Read these as tendencies: origin, process and how you brew all move the cup.
Who it suits
- People who found something they like and want it to taste the same next year, which is what a blend is for.
- Households getting through real volume. The kilo bags are the whole value case, and they only work if you drink them fresh.
- People who want to choose their own roast rather than take the roaster's word for it, since the range covers 4 of our five levels.
Is it good value?
Our test is simple, and it is the same one we apply to everything: cost per cup against the median for the same format. Coffee Gems clears it comfortably on at least one product, which more brands fail than pass. Worth knowing that the saving is concentrated in the larger bags rather than spread evenly, so buying the small size gives most of it back.
Coffee Gems products we track
Cheapest per cup first, with live prices.
Prices are the last we fetched and can move. As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases. It never changes the order, which is always cheapest per cup first.
What else to consider
No brand is worth buying without knowing what sits next to it on price. These are the closest ground coffees we track to Coffee Gems, and the comparison hubs will put all of them on the same per-cup basis if you want to go wider.
Coffees priced like Coffee Gems
The closest ground coffees on price per cup, from brands we also track. If one of these is cheaper for the same thing, that is worth knowing before you order.
Compare against the market
Keep reading
PricesCoffee Gems price guideEvery bag priced per cup and per kilo, with the cheapest route to each one.BrandAll Coffee Gems pricesLive prices on all 14 products, cheapest cup first.CompareEvery ground coffeeAll 483 of them on one per-cup basis, filterable by roast and origin.ReviewCoffee Factory reviewThe closest brand to Coffee Gems on price, at 58p a cup.OffersToday's best valueEverything currently priced well under the median for its own format.