[ninkendo]

My wife generally buys the coffee, sometimes it’s Peet’s something or other roast, sometimes Starbucks breakfast blend, sometimes ground and sometimes whole bean (we have a grinder but are often too lazy to use it.) When I buy it it’s usually Folgers. I also get coffee at McDonald’s, Starbucks, gas stations, hotels, etc. None of these are really distinguishable to me.

My friend made pour over coffee once, I don’t remember it tasting any different at all.

I can tell if someone made it “strong” or not, mostly because if it’s really strong I feel jittery and over-caffeinated after. It does taste “stronger” too, but not so much different as just less watery vs more watery.

[abstract_put]

Ah, then I'm following. I would generally agree with you! Despite the labeling differences, I think almost all of those are going to be roasted to the point where that's all you can taste (rather than the bean). In a sense, the processing for all those offerings is basically "how can we make everything taste extremely predictable and uniform?". Most of the difference will be hot/cold, watery/concentrated.

If you're interested, I'm 100% positive you'd be surprised at how many different flavors are available in coffee. I'd second the recommendation of qbasic_forever above. It can make a fun date with the wife, or if you have a locally available coffee subscription that can be a fun way to see some variety at home. Funky fermented flavors, maybe juicy acidity - I promise there are coffees that would be unrecognizable as coffee.

All that said, you might not like any of them. If what you're drawn to is the roasty flavors and bitterness then you'll lose some of that in exchange. All that to say, I'm 100% certain you'd be surprised by the variety of flavors if you were to pursue it, but there's no reason to if you're happy with what you've got. It only gets more expensive and less accessible...