The classic Italian bar blend: arabica with a good deal of robusta, which is where the thick crema espresso is known for comes from. Usually the cheapest kilo on this list.
- Blend with robusta
- Blend
Coffee beans for espresso
Sorted by the price of a kilo, not the price on the bag. Those are not the same thing: a 250 g bag sits on the shelf among the kilos and looks cheap for it.
We do not rank beans by taste. Taste is not something we measure, and a “best beans” list would be an opinion presented as a finding. Everything below is off the packaging, with one figure we work out ourselves: what a kilo costs.
Single origin and roasted lighter than the Italian blends. Lighter-roasted beans are harder and want a finer grind — see the article on beans.
- 100% arabica
- Single origin
A dark-roasted blend with robusta, made for the Italian bar. Full and bittersweet, and the kind of bean a bean-to-cup grinder gets through without complaint.
- Blend with robusta
- Blend
All arabica as well, but roasted darker than the Oro. The middle path between the soft arabica blends and the firm bar blends.
- 100% arabica
- Blend
Segafredo’s house blend, a little less dark than the Intermezzo and so rather more approachable if you drink it with milk as well.
- Blend with robusta
- Blend
All arabica, and so softer and more acidic than the blends carrying robusta. Anyone who finds espresso too harsh often starts here.
- 100% arabica
- Blend
Certified organic and roasted medium-dark. A kilo of organic beans here costs roughly what a kilo of branded blend costs, which was not always the case.
- Blend with robusta
- Blend
- Organic
Decaffeinated, as beans rather than ground. Mind the half-size bag: per kilo, decaf is almost always dearer, because removing the caffeine costs money.
- Blend with robusta
- Blend
- Decaffeinated
A blend of nine arabicas, and by a wide margin the most expensive kilo here — the 250 g bag looks cheap and per kilo is nothing of the sort.
- 100% arabica
- Blend
Espressodeal earns commission when you buy something through a link on this page. It costs you nothing extra and does not decide which machine we recommend. Read how that works