Coffee taste test: Does the expensive kind really taste better?

The average American spends more than $1,000 a year on coffee. But do you really need to spend a lot on your morning cup, or is the cheap stuff just as good?

Launching a special Rossen Reports series called "Don't Pay That," TODAY national investigative correspondent Jeff Rossen set up a blind taste test in New Jersey's Menlo Park Mall to see. The contenders: cheap deli coffee priced at $1 a cup versus fancy gourmet coffee coming in at $3.25 per cup.

The taste test went on for hours, with dozens of people sampling the competing brews. And when it was over, there was a clear winner, preferred by 67 percent of the testers.

When Savannah Guthrie, Matt Lauer and Al Roker took the blind taste test live on TODAY Monday, the results were even more dramatic: All three anchors preferred the cheap coffee!

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