Review Illy Medium Roast Espresso Beans

In our continuing search for the best and worst espresso beans out there I splashed out and recently bought some Illy Medium Roast espresso beans. As I mentioned in last week's post, Victrola Espresso Beans Are Great, I purchased 6 half-pound cans of the beans directly from Illy USA using their website at a cost of $72. This is about twice the cost of beans I have recently reviewed favorably from coffee roasters Victrola and Espresso Vivace. As noted above, the beans come in cans rather than the more usual plastic or foil bags. The can is sealed and has a tear top tab for ease of opening. As always, once opened, I transferred the beans to my "BeanVac" to keep them vacuum-sealed and fresh, not that it will take all that long for me to get through a mere half-pound of beans! The beans are mid-brown and dry as would be expected of a medium roast. (Dark roast beans are oily as the extra roasting time starts to "squeeze" the oils from the beans.)

It takes a little extra effort to get good crema production from these beans; I found I had to grind them a little finer than I have been grinding my beans from Vivace and Victrola. Once I did that good crema was produced.

The flavor is a complex combination of bitter and sweet, and it definitely is a roast that is pleasant to drink straight as a straight up espresso shot or short black as it is called in some countries. It also has sufficient punch to make good milk espresso drinks such as lattes, cappuccinos, or flat-whites.

Overall, these are beans that I would recommend, but they are definitely not worth twice the price of the beans from Vivace and Victrola in my opinion, and to my taste, do not have any flavor edge over those beans either. But I will enjoy finishing off the remaining cans.

Victrola Espresso Beans are Great!

Here's another great espresso bean find from one of the Seattle roasters.

Victrola Coffee Roasters has two locations in Seattle, one on 15th Avenue East on Capitol Hill, and the other on famous Pike Street in downtown Seattle. When it comes to coffee roasting, Victrola keeps it simple; in terms of espresso roasts, there is only one, known as Streamline Espresso offered online at $13 per lb. I recently ordered 3lbs. The beans arrived on the third day after ordering.

The appearance of the beans is pale brown and the beans are dry as would be expected for a roast that has not got to the point of creating "dark beans". The beans create thick dark crema without fail using my Gaggia Evloution espresso maker and Solis Maestro burr grinder. As to taste, this roast is perfect for the straight up espresso shot (short black as I discovered on my recent trip to New Zealand); there is no hint of bitterness, and in fact the flavor is quite sweet. Because of this you want to be sure not to overwhelm the flavor when using the beans to make your favorite espresso-based milk beverages.

So these are definitely an excellent roast to add to your line up.

My next taste test is going to be of Illy's medium roast espresso beans. I just ordered 6 8oz cans from the Illy website for $72 (free ground shipping), so about twice the price of the Victrola beans! I have had Illy quite often in New Zealand coffee shops, but they are not common in coffee shops in the United States. Let's see if they are twice as good...

I made mention to my Gaggia espresso machine and Solis grinder above. I just realized that they are both about 2 years old now, and they have turned out an average of 3 double-shots of espresso per day. Some days a lot more than that when I have guests over. This is definitely the longest trouble-free experience I've had with a domestic espresso machine, and it's still going strong. You can read my reviews of the Gaggia Evolution espresso maker and the Solis Maestro burr grinder.

Do you have an online supplier of espresso beans that you'd like to recommend? If so, let me know by posting a comment below.

AeroPress: Thoughts and suggestions after 3 months - alt.coffee | Google Groups

AeroPress: Thoughts and suggestions after 3 months - alt.coffee Google Groups

I recently wrote this post about the AeroPress. Above is a post at the Google Coffee group from someone who has used one of these for the last 3 months. It sounds like something worth trying, and perhaps a good thing to have at work to avoid having to drink the horrible "Colombian" floor sweepings that get dished up as coffee. The AeroPress is available at Amazon.com.

Coffee a Lifesaver

The journal Nature reported on April 1st that a technique using enzymes to convert type A, B, and AB to type O will potentially eliminate the constant shortage of blood. Blood types A, B, and AB carry proteins that cause hyperallergic responses typically resulting in death when given to people with a different blood type. Since blood type O is absent these proteins, anyone can safely be given type O blood. The idea of such antigen-stripping goes back to the early 1980s, when it was discovered that an enzyme in coffee beans removes B antigens from red blood cells.

Coffee to the rescue once again! Now I know why my blood is type O; it's all the coffee I drink!