Gourmet coffee gift baskets are a great gift idea.

You can buy coffee gift baskets ready-made from a large assortment available online or visit your local coffee shop. One online sources would be Gevalia and Green Mountain Coffee

You can also have fun being creative, and browse for various gourmet coffee beans, coffee mugs and other accessories to make a gift basket of your own.

Deciding what to put into your gourmet coffee gift basket

You can go with something very basic, with a couple of small bags of coffee and a coffee mug.That would be appreciated, but it is sort of "blah."

Add a bit of pizazz to the gift basket by assembling just the right collection of items, and you'll create a truly memorable coffee gift.

Ask yourself, "what does this person like?" For example, if the person has a single serve brewer like a Keurig, a nice assortment of K-Cups would be a real treat. If you give yourself some time, you can customize a coffee mug online with a favorite saying. The person may like coffees from a particular country or region, like Kenya, or Sumatra, or Columbia. Or they talk about how they would like some Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee but they wouldn't splurge to buy for themselves.

When you don't have much time to pull together an assortment of coffee items, you might consider looking online at Green Mountain Coffee. In addition to the best selection of K-Cups, Green Mountain Coffee offers a wide range of gourmet coffee gift baskets to fit your budget and preferences.

Some ideas for building your own coffee gift baskets...

Personally, I think its a lot of fun to build your own gift baskets.

You can think about creating a custom gift basket around a particular theme of interest to the gift recipient. Here are some ideas:

• For someone who is in the car a lot, you could find a nice travel mug and several bags of good quality coffee (perhaps even ground coffee if they travel away from home a lot).
• If you know the person uses a single serve coffee maker, they are sure to enjoy a selection of various K-Cups, T-Discs or coffee pods.
• A social rights activist would appreciate a gift basket built from fair trade and organic coffees. These coffees help to increase the living standards in impoverished coffee growing regions.
• An environmentalist would like those fair trade and organic coffees and other environmentally friendly gifts as promoting a green lifestyle. In addition, you could add a nice French press coffee maker, which doesn't require paper filters or disposable coffee pods and has no hot pad.
• For the adventurer (or would-be adventurer), search out coffees from exotic places around the world, and create a travelogue of coffees stretching from Indonesia, to Africa, to Jamaica, South America and Hawaii.
• If this is for someone who just opened a new home, or started working from a home office, they would appreciate a coffee maker or an insulated travel mug. An Aeropress is an inexpensive coffee maker that makes terrific coffee, and might be a gift that someone would not think to get for themself.

The best coffee gift baskets are the ones that reflect your own individuality and imagination, considering the likes of the person you're buying for. They will appreciate the extra touches you include. So, think about your budget, as what the person likes to drink. If they like tea or hot chocolate, you can include that in the basket, too.

For a major gift, you could even consider a single cup coffee system, or a burr coffee grinder. (I would stay away from the blade grinders, although they are inexpensive since a gourmet coffee drinker would much prefer a conical burr grinder.)

A new college graduate, or just-married couple might enjoy a beginner set for gourmet coffee, including some expertly roasted whole beans, a coffee grinder, and a coffee maker. Again, the Aeropress is a great gift that fits anyone's budget, while a Keurig brewer will cost more but will be appreciated every morning.

Hopefully you've gotten enough ideas. The links on this page will help you get started, to create a unique gift that will cause you to be be remembered fondly for weeks or even years to come.

Here's a look at gourmet coffee lifestyle choices.

You can see of the top gourmet coffee gifts here.