Word. Bollocks to pissing about roasting this and grinding that in this or that contraption (unless that's the coffee the way you like it of course). A moka pot (or farteaire) of whatever looks like reasonable quality off the shelf fresh ground at the local super is my daily coffee of choice and no more than one cup a day is my personal rule. We have Taylors and Bettys shops in the town I live as well with all sorts on offer ground as you wait or sold as whole beans but fuck paying that sorta price for the little difference I find it makes.
I'd be interested in knowing how bettys / taylors measure up to e.g. Monmouth / square mile. One of the difficulties - IME - is that like you describe, a lot of 'posh' coffee isn't doing very much beyond what supermarkets do. It may've been however many years ago, when e.g. Whittard first rolled out. But however many years later, selling an *identifiable* / semi-traceable brand of bean is something that pretty much every supermarket'll be doing.
The difference in the quality of various coffees - IME / IMO - comes not only from the variety / type of bean; but - far more importantly - how recently it's been roast and ground. IIRC, we had a Taylors in Cam; when I ran out of beans (in my first year) I headed in there and asked how long it was since their beans'd been roasted, and neither of the people in there had a clue. Likewise Whittard. Likewise the 'speciality coffee' bloke who works in Cam market. IME, all three of them sell pretty much what you're describing - stuff that's thin, dead, and stale (which isn't too surprising, given all of them leave their beans out in the open air / in open-topped or regularly-opened drums.) Or, well... stuff that's very similar to what can be found in supermarkets, only at a significant increase in price.
At the same time... IMO, really good coffee just... isn't... that hard to identify. It's not like a wine snob thing (though some people go that way with hints and whifflings of this, that and the other). At the most basic level, if you were given a fresh-ground cup of really well-extracted, fresh-roast coffee I'd bank that you could taste a considerable difference between that and anything you'd get from a supermarket.
I was surprised - and delighted - to find that Monmouth in London do exactly that. And so do a fair few other places. But it's damned hard to find anywhere that really, really puts in the effort / goes the extra mile to secure the basics of fresh roast / fresh ground.
So, yeah, on the one hand, I kinda agree with what you're saying. OTOH, IMO there's a far broader picture there.
And I'd also fully agree that the most important thing is that people enjoy what they're drinking, whatever it is
it will still be nice when I drink it this weekend, but not as nice as it would have been on Monday.
