Free vs paid office coffee: which actually tastes better?

• Cost is not a proxy for quality in either direction. Offices that charge often invest in better equipment; offices that give it away often buy more carefully to control volume.
• What separates them in practice is maintenance and bean freshness, neither of which appears on an invoice.
• Deskbrew keeps cost as a filter precisely so this question can be answered by taste ratings rather than assumed from a price.

Every score on this page comes from taste ratings alone, weighted by identity and recency and pulled toward a neutral prior until enough ratings accumulate. Cost, machine, and milk decide which column an office lands in — never how high it sits inside one.