Sam's Club Member's Mark Vs Costco's Kirkland Signature: Which Brand Has The Better Ground Coffee?

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If you can't load up on ground coffee in bulk to keep your caffeine habit satisfied, what good is having a warehouse membership? Costco and Sam's Club know the value of having signature-label ground coffee ready to go so you can brew and chug without needing a coffee grinder. Both chains offer trim selections of grounds that promise to make your morning rev-up a delicious affair, though "delicious" is a highly subjective term — one that requires first-hand insight to be confirmed or denied. It's a good thing I'm a coffee fan with a Costco and Sam's Club within reach. I found a selection and prices specific to the Glendale, Arizona, locations, though they're likely to vary over time and by region. 

Though Sam's Club and Costco's whole-bean coffee blends are the more common option carried by the companies, both chains offer a couple of pre-ground selection under the Member's Mark and Kirkland Signature banners, respectively. I found two different versions at Costco and Sam's, which was java a-plenty for a taste test to see which company does it best. Brewing up the different pots and putting these grounds to the test got my engine revving for more than just the full-bore caffeine content; it was also raring to break down the aroma, flavor, and overall presentation to find out which warehouse has ground coffee worth raving over.

Sam's Club aims for the middle with its Member's Mark Classic medium roast coffee grounds, a centric option that promised to be a people pleaser for coffee lovers of all stripes. At $17.32 for a 40-ounce (2.5-pound) container, these grounds come in a cardboard canister, a unique packaging shift that puts environmental responsibility second only to coffee enjoyment.

Quality was in question from the jump, however. The aroma here was pretty bitter, which isn't always a bad sign; sometimes, it hints at complexity that comes to life once the brewing happens. I had high hopes that this would be the case, but the bitterness of this medium roast remained after brewing, giving the basic beverage a heavy molasses-like taste that I've noticed in coffee that's been heated too long. In this case, it shows up as a feature that may also be a bug from the Sam's Club coffee producer responsible for the grounds. There's a bit of roasted chocolate essence that diffuses the sharpness, but it took extra creamer to soften the body of these grounds.

Even with the tempting price, you can find better-tasting coffee that's every bit as affordable. There may be plenty of Sam's Club items that beat the Costco equivalent, but this Member's Mark medium roast isn't one of them. 

Trendy twists like a donut-shop version of a medium roast ground coffee from Member's Mark brings a question to mind: What exactly does "donut shop" translate to in a coffee? If it's a combination of Arabica beans and thoughtful roasting with a dash of brightly-colored packaging, this 40-ounce package nails the brief. At $16.98, it's the best-priced warehouse coffee in the round-up. The aroma was in line with the concept too: a bit sharp, a little sassy, and capable of inspiring full-bodied coffee dreams. All that was missing was a mind-blowing brew that closed out the fantasy in robust, barista-level style.

The fantasy remains unfulfilled, unfortunately. If the donut-shop version of a more flavorful coffee is aiming for a middle ground, Member's Mark comes through like a champ. However, there's nothing noteworthy to recommend this package; it's as nondescript as a coffee can be, taking on more of the creamer flavor than asserting its own coffee notes that, according to the label, should be bright, sweet, and balanced. The roast indicator shows it to be the same medium finish as the Member's Mark Classic, but it's slightly blander. Sorry to dunk on this donut shop selection, but it's not a valid java in my opinion.

Kirkland Signature Colombian dark roast ground coffee should be the perfect mid-level ground coffee for your workaday needs — moderately bold flavor, smooth body, and welcoming to your favorite creamers or syrups. The 48-ounce can cost me $20.99, a bargain considering some 12-ounce bags of bougie coffee can run even higher. True, this isn't artisan coffee, but if you're on the hunt for affordable grounds at quantity with a pleasing flavor, you'll get plenty for an agreeable price.

Peeling back the foil under the lid is like walking into a coffee shop, full-bore heady roasted aroma with the power to energize. It holds the promise of premium coffee moments you wouldn't expect from an old-fashioned can, especially if you're used to getting grounds in foil bags or you're buying Kirkland's single-serve capsules. Packaging should not be prohibitive to this Costco purchase, though. You get a generous 3-pound can of premium grounds for little more than you'd pay for a regular-sized pouch of a more upscale coffee.

If the prospect of having more coffee than you can use before it starts to lose its charm concerns you, freeze half of the grounds in a zipper-top plastic bag for later use. Considering the price, quantity, and quality you get, it's worth figuring out how to make it work. Yes ... it's that good.

The medium roast version of Kirkland Signature's Arabica-based ground coffee comes in a more contemporary zipper pouch, which makes it easier to wedge into your freezer to slow the aging process. That's great news considering I bought 40 ounces (2.5 pounds) for $18.49, which would break down to less than 50 cents per ounce. That's less than half the cost of bigger brands like Starbucks found in national chain grocers, which can run for $1.12 per ounce in a 12-ounce bag from Kroger, for example. This is despite the fact that Starbucks once provided some of Costco's Kirkland-branded coffee products.

The quality beneath the seal tells the real tale, though, and with this bag, it's premium. The aroma is bold and proud, announcing itself and alerting you to the deep brew that awaits. And what a brew it is; this roast has the seemingly bottomless depth that recalls higher-end coffees. Notes of chocolate and smoky hickory balance against one another for an intriguingly gourmet-adjacent mix. They only got more pleasant when I dropped a little creamer into the cup.

With Kirkland boasting such a heaping helping of grounds, you can extend your supply economically and get a premium base coffee for fancier drinks that also works wonderfully in its unadorned form. I can imagine using this one for iced coffee as well as hot drinks, thanks to its smoothness and level distribution of tasting notes.

I'd love to say both Kirkland Signature and Member's Mark are doing great things with ground coffee. Not everyone has dual membership, which makes cherry-picking the best of both worlds an impossibility for most. But sampling two offerings from each warehouse side-by-side showed me that Costco has a clear advantage over Sam's Club in this arena, and it's not even close. Anyone thinking "ground coffee is all the same" would be equally disabused of that view if they were to taste-test these four uniquely different products themselves.

Even when there's a huge discount in play thanks to bulk pricing, java lovers should have dependable ground coffee to enjoy without having to work through an ill-advised purchase to justify the spend. Sadly, Sam's Club would have to take incredible steps to catch up to the quality of Costco's house-brand coffee grounds, making Kirkland Signature the recommended option when going for ground coffee in the world of warehouse shopping.

To figure out how favorable these coffees are, I made a six-cup pot of each type of grounds. Since I usually drink three cups a day, I limited my sampling to avoid over-caffeination; I had writing to do, and hands that shaky can't be trusted on a laptop keyboard. I paid close attention to the bouquet that arose as I opened each container to see if the potential flavor related to the aroma. In all four products, it was a firm indicator of the final brew.

I also took notice of the aroma as the coffee brewed, another indication of how flavorful the finished coffee could be, though it isn't a foolproof sign. It does enhance the coffee experience, though, so it's worth taking note of. When the grounds were finished brewing, I tasted each on their own to determine how pleasant the basic coffees were without enhancement. Then, I added a splash of creamer to each cup to see how well each blend played with simple add-ins. The final standing showed that Kirkland ground coffees are superior in every instance to the Member's Mark version.