# Lavazza Super Crema - Thoughts?



## mission701 (Oct 15, 2018)

What are your thoughts on Lavazza Super Crema?

I bought my first 1kg bag of Lavazza Super Crema a week or so ago. It seemed to be fairly well reviewed, especially for the price and widely used.

I usually buy from Rave, Union, Square Mile etc and get a selection of 250-350g bags so am used to decent quality, freshly roasted beans, but ones which cost 2-3x the price of the Lavazza so I thought what the hell - let's save some money and use it for practice and consistency.

I found I needed to set my grinder (Vario) considerably more coarse, changing from 2J to 2U, to get a 25-30sec decent tasting extraction but whatever the setting, I found the volume of grounds produced was insane! Whereas a 16g dose will fill my measly FF X1 portafilter basket roughly to the top and then I'll tamp down, the Lavazza produced almost twice the volume of grounds so the mountain was spilling all over the place. I noticed that the Lavazza beans were visibly very oily so I wonder if it could be this that brings on the volume?!

Ultimately I think the Lavazza is too dark a roast for me and whilst I get the chocolate and nut notes, I think it's a little flat in profile without any fruit to balance out the taste so I don't think I'll be getting another bag - but my wife likes it so to that end I probably will!


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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

You could try this one - I haven't. For espresso machines.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lavazza-Aroma-Espresso-Beans-Arabica/dp/B000SDMFHA/ref=sr_1_20_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1541237293&sr=8-20&keywords=lavazza+beans

It sounds like you have experienced true fluffy grounds totally free of any form of clumping. Oily beans usually go the other way but having said that weighing in on my mazzer mini I now get fluffy grinds but it needed several kg of beans run through it to achieve that. If I used the hopper it would clump and the mound would be much lower. I use a short 58mm lens hood to keep the grinds in. These beans really are oily.

I've only used Lavazza preground - early on when I bought a machine as we had some around. Rosa is pretty popular made with other methods but it doesn't taste the same out of an espresso machine. Rather unpleasant. This may apply to their beans as well so it's a case of trying and finding out as reviewers may have used any brewing method.

I think that generally darker roasts may be preferred by the general public but having seen a video of Illy roasting they were using a temperature that will give first crack and unlikely to go any further. Colour wise the result looked pretty similar to other commercially roasted beans I've tried.. I'd say this is a medium roast. A fresh bean roaster wont be using the sort of gear that large commercial roasters such as Illy use. That may well alter roast colour. Some beans such as Starbucks were a lot darker even though it stated medium roast on the package.

I've tried several brands of supermarket beans. Only success drink wise really was from Lidl. One that tastes ok but a bit weak via an aeropress from Tesco's was awful via and espresso machine.







Main problem with Lidl is not all branches stock whole beans. I sometimes have a pack around for if I run out of beans and had been thinking about trying Lavazza. I have never had the always flood through symptom some people reckon comes from these source of beans even when the taste has been totally crap. Most have what I would call a supermarket taste - it's pretty distinctive. One pack bought for me as a present did flood through what ever grind setting was used but that's unique in my experience. Those were from famous cake, coffee and tea place and rather expensive.

John

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## ajohn (Sep 23, 2017)

No hope for me I have tried that Lavazza bean now. It's pretty pleasant. Taste wise I can see where figs comes from and flowers after a fashion. Sweet yes but a slightly acidic after taste. Pretty strong beans. 15.5g in 39 out, 30sec in a 330ml long black with little milk. If people appreciate why Blue Mountain is described as well balanced I'd say this is too but stronger with a distinctive taste. It grinds pretty easily.

https://www.lavazza.com/en/business/restaurants/beans/pienaroma.html

:Lavazza's suggested brew is 7g or 14g in with 30 or 60 out in 25 to 30 secs probably for tiddly cute fashionable coffee cups etc. Not my bag.

It'll take me rather a long time to use up 1kg as a secondary bean. Be interesting to see how long they keep. More of a caffiene kick than any other orgin fresh roasted bean I have used even at medium roast which these are. Way more than the usual dark roasts.

Most of their restaurant bean blends have robusta in. This one and one other doesn't.

John

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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

Just priceless


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## urbanbumpkin (Jan 30, 2013)

Square Mile kicks Lavazzas arse.


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## coffeechap (Apr 5, 2012)

urbanbumpkin said:


> Square Mile kicks Lavazzas arse.


Hey what do you know? Lavazza is amazing coffee, the best you can buy!


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## MediumRoastSteam (Jul 7, 2015)

Ok... I'll start. Let's play hang man:

L A V A _ _ _ Y


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## GerryM (Feb 6, 2016)

Mr. Boombastic

What you want is some boombastic romantic

Fantastic lava,

Shaggy

Mr. Lava Lava, Mmm,

Mr. Lava lava , heh girl

Mr. Lava lava, Mmm, Mr. Lava lava


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

Can someone tell me what th distinctive, yet tantilisingly vague, "supermarket taste" is?

Is it the spirit of unlabeled, dented tins, you used to be able to buy in the 80s? "Oh I thought I might be peaches but it's cat food. "

Is it the taste of a wonky trolley wheel that develops half way through a shopping trip.

Is it the freshly wept tears of the trolley boy, who has asked out the girl on checkout 12, only to be rejected infront on his fellow Co workers..


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

GerryM said:


> Mr. Boombastic
> 
> What you want is some boombastic romantic
> 
> ...


Best. Post. Ever.

___

Eat, drink and be merry


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