# Tesco Beans



## MikeHag (Mar 13, 2011)

Sea Chief asked if anyone would try brewing with cheaper beans. I bought the following










On the left, Tesco premium 100% arabica beans, reduced from £3.49 to £2.99

On the right, Tesco standard whole beans... presumable including robusta.

















They are both quite oily, the standard ones more than the premium ones.

Extraction videos:

Premium:

http://www.youtube.com/user/neeway2000#p/a/u/0/SpoobFouGKo

Standard:

http://www.youtube.com/user/neeway2000#p/a/u/1/LLIGaRW_dcg

There was not a great deal between them appearance-wise. They were both heading towards black rather than brown. Although there was some crema in both cases, it was thin and somewhat yellow. But they didn't look undrinkable.

As for taste...

The standard beans tasted better than anything I've had from every cafe or restaurant across the whole of Scotland, excluding one or two speciality coffee shops. Let me qualify that statement... aside from the one or two good places, everything I've had across Scotland has been completely shit. These Tesco beans did not produce a good espresso, but they did produce a drinkable one. The best I an say is "they were not shit". It depends how high your standards are. Personally I would not drink it again, and if a cafe served it I would not go there again. But probably 95% of joe public would be happy with it (sadly!). For anyone on a budget, wanting to make espresso that doesn't need to be amazing, and just needs to be "not shit" these beans are fine.

As for the premium beans, I of course expected them to be better than the standard ones. As well as being more expensive, they were roasted lighter and had less oil on the surface. In reality, "they WERE shit!". Words fail to describe how awful these tasted. Bitter doesn't get anywhere near. And the disgusting taste in my mouth is still persisting about an hour after drinking it. Seriously, steer well clear. Go for the cheap ones. I'm guessing that the robusta in the cheap beans is of a higher quality than the arabica in the premium ones.

So, I still strongly recommend getting good beans from a good roaster, but if anyone wants to make their budget stretch further then it is possible to get by with cheaper beans if you're prepared to sacrifice quality.


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## MonkeyHarris (Dec 3, 2010)

If you really want a laugh buy their pre ground espresso. It's ground into particles about half the size of an average coffee bean. I'd love to know who their chief coffee bod is and how he actually earns his money.


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## bespokelogic (Sep 4, 2011)

I agree 100% on using good quality, freshly roasted beans, although if I can't, the waitrose monsooned malabar beans serve me quite well. They do seem very oily, almost sticky but once ground, satisfy my need.

Anyone else tried these?


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## seeq (Jul 9, 2011)

MonkeyHarris said:


> If you really want a laugh buy their pre ground espresso. It's ground into particles about half the size of an average coffee bean. I'd love to know who their chief coffee bod is and how he actually earns his money.


Most espresso machines out there are off the shelf types, delonghi, dualit, krups, etc and they nearly all come with a pressurised portafilter. Even the classic's do these days, so selling course ground just makes commercial sense, a fine grind would choke most pressurised machines.

On the original note I've tried both the tesco beans and I agree with mike, the basic level I preferred and it is in fact comparable to has bean four blend which I am drinking now and don't find particularly good..... Drinkable, but not good.


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