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@Narwhal

soo have you found something for your bf? The coffee i was talking about can actually be just ordered online.. its actually freshly roasted before reaches your home. I just got some .. its a great cup.weaver's

I'm on the east coast, and I'll be sure to look into all of your suggestions! Thank you very much, and if you think of anything else be sure to let me know!

I'm going to plug my friend's shop, Anthony's, on Maui, Hawaii. He hand roasts a large variety of coffees from Hawaii, East Asia, Central & South America. He does a big mail order business to the mainland.
I love his Kona Extra Fancy, but it is quite expensive. The Maui Mokka and Maui Grown (Typica) varieties are much more reasonably priced, and really delicious. All coffee, except for the decaf, is roasted on the premises in small batches every few days. The beans are then packed in vacuum-sealed bags, and shipped to you via FedEx.
http://www.anthonyscoffee.com/

Stumptown is fantastic, as is Gimme Coffee.

The Unseen Bean is good coffee and an interesting story. The guy who roasts the beans is blind (thus, "unseen") and he pretty much does all the work himself. He's got a friend who helps (and who does the driving when they need to go somewhere) but he's got voice readouts on his equipment so he can work on his own as far as roasting, packaging, and labeling. The labels also have braille lettering, so he can find them on the shelves when he needs to. And the logo is cute -- a dog with dark glasses. You can find his beans online. Another interesting tidbit is that before he was roasting coffee beans, he was a car mechanic, and from what I heard, he was pretty good about it, even if he couldn't do test drives.

Intelligentsia is very good as are Counter Culture, Ecco Caffe, Stumptown and many smaller lesser known roasters that I'm comfortable recommending. Where are you located - what metro area?

As for a "better" grinder.... it depends on whether he he eventually plans to have a good espresso machine or if his use will be just brewed coffee. A Baratza Virtuoso or Kitchen-Aid Proline are both very good for brewed coffee at the under $200 price point. For a good espresso grinder plan on roughly $275 and up to more than you can imagine spending.

where you located? there is a spot in sag harbor that has a coffee blend called dream. it is amazing. my bf loves this stuff. i prefer it hot but it is really good cold. it has a hint of chocolate. yum.

you can order it online at www.returntomainstreet.com

Best coffee I've ever had:
http://www.intelligentsiacoffee.com/
Seriously - a coffee basket is not complete without it.