One Of Consumer Reports' Lowest-Rated Coffee Blends Comes From Kirkland Signature

We may receive a commission on purchases made from links.

Out of the 27 coffee blends rated on Consumer Reports, Kirkland Signature's House Blend ranked second-to-last, beating out CR's lowest-rated coffee, Maxwell House's House Blend, by the narrowest of margins. The site noted that the warehouse giant's coffee tasted burnt, harsh, and bitter, and since it's only available as whole beans, this indicates probable issues with Kirkland's roasting process. Mashed's own reviewer gave a slightly kinder evaluation in our rankings of Costco's Kirkland coffee blends, comparing it to an unremarkable office coffee — it's not great, but it gets the job done.

However, online customer reviews are incredibly mixed on the blend. While more than 68% of reviews on the Costco website give it 5 out of 5 stars, numerous users on Reddit have less-than-good things to say about it. One Redditor pointed out how the "medium roast" advertised on its packaging is a lie, considering how burnt it tastes, while another shared that they couldn't finish their cup on account of how over-roasted and oily it was.

One user offered a possible explanation for the disparity between reviews: the coffee used to taste okay until Costco changed its roasters. Until early 2024, the packaging said it was roasted by Starbucks, and the page for that version of the product had a whopping 85% of its reviews scoring 5 stars. The massive drop-off in positive reviews for the newer version says a lot about what might have happened.

While its Consumer Reports rating should give you pause, there's no denying Kirkland Signature's House Blend has a pretty attractive price tag. A 2.5-pound bag of beans goes for around $21.50; using it with the commonly recommended 1-to-17 coffee-to-water ratio for drip coffee, that's roughly 85 cups at just around 25 cents per cup. Of course, if you care about flavor at all, it's probably worth avoiding regardless.

Thankfully, Kirkland Signature still makes a couple of decent coffees. If you want to stick with its blends, the Espresso Blend is probably the best Kirkland coffee blend to start your morning with. Our reviewer ranked it at the very top of the blends, although in this case, "best" means "most positively mid". It didn't have the complexity of finer coffee, but it also lacked the bitterness of cheap blends. We found it pleasantly mellow with hints of burnt sugar and nuttiness, and it would work well as the base for more creative coffee recipes.

If you want some actual good coffee from Kirkland, see if you can still score a bag of Kirkland Signature Organic Mexico Whole Bean Coffee, which some customers called one of the best Costco products to buy in August 2026. The limited-edition, single-origin coffee from Oaxaca has 89% of its reviews on Costco giving it a perfect 5 stars thanks to its smoothness and strong notes of cocoa. Over on Reddit, the sentiment is largely the same, with multiple users counting it among their favorite coffees from Costco in both the r/espresso sub and two different threads in r/Costco, one asking for reviews and the other celebrating its return.