# Costa coffee



## grumpydaddy (Oct 20, 2014)

I have some. It is old and it smells less than lovely

You may have heard the expression "Take one for the team", well, just for kicks I made a few at home.

All made with milk because I am not that brave and to each I added a level spoon of sugar.

First of all they taste nothing like the cups purchased at a motorway services and they pour reasonably well too.

So, what have I learnt?

I will not be buying any.

Something about the process used in their shops etc makes a poor coffee a lot worse

Made with a little care at home the taste is..... well you will find a lot worse in your travels.... about on a par with any supermarket beans I have tried.

Anybody else want to try?


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## MWJB (Feb 28, 2012)

A few weekends ago, I had 3 shots of Costa, no milk, no sugar, all made by different members of staff. All were sweet & balanced, not the sort of coffee I'd buy for home, but in its context, I couldn't find anything to complain about.


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## filthynines (May 2, 2016)

Are these actual Costa Coffee beans, or the ones found on Amazon, or - worse - the bags of pre-ground stuff that is nothing their shop-made coffee?

I like Costa; it's my go-to chain if I can't find an independent I like in the place where I happen to be that day. So much so that it formed part of my decision to buy shares in its owner Whitbread.


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## h1udd (Sep 1, 2015)

My parents buy Costa beans direct from the roaster or the warehouse (not figured out where they are actually getting them from but the price is fair) ..... They are OK a little generic tasting with no strong flavours of anything in particular .... But totally ruined by putting them in a Jura b2c machine.

but a loosing grind and a low bar pull through the la pav makes for a decent enough shot

As for the cafe ...... The lemon and ginger tray bake thing is awesom !!!!


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## mremanxx (Dec 30, 2014)

Has to be the worst thing I have experienced since drinking coffee made from decent beans, I cannot drink coffee in my friends homes as they only do instant, and when out and about I very rarely buy coffee unless I think it is going to taste half way decent. Ignorance was bliss


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## Jacko112 (Oct 29, 2015)

I got a bag of ground costa coffee from daughter last Sunday as she knew I enjoyed 'coffee'

Havent got the heart I'd rather put water through the soil instead, still at my mum enjoys it so she can have it!


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## Scotford (Apr 24, 2014)

I'd rather not ever drink their coffee but I've had a decent tea from them.


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## UbiquitousPhoton (Mar 7, 2016)

I was going to say, we have a costa over the road, and they seem to be completely incapable of pulling even a midway decent shot, which, guan the level of equipment available to them and the cost is pretty incredible. (I once saw one of the 'barsta' start pulling a shot, completely miss the cup for at least half the shot, then just shove it underneath for the last bit and serve it)

but its a franchise isn't it?


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## caramel (Jun 22, 2016)

I've had terrible coffee from Costa, but I've also had reasonable ones too. My general rules for shops like these are to either avoid them or buy a latte because that much milk does a reasonable job of masking the coffee, but then again, sometimes they overdo the milk too.

I got an americano from a McDonalds once and it was really good, but out of the hundreds I have had, only that one has been really good.


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## Xpenno (Nov 12, 2012)

Costa seem to be roasting lighter these days. My local store makes a half decent americano, balanced, sweet and hints of fruity acidity. Wouldn't be buying their beans for home but any port in a storm. This said I've had horrific coffee from other Costa stores so it's by no means cut and dry.


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## Kyle T (Jan 6, 2016)

Being the franchise it is, it must depend on the staff they have working there and how dedicated they are to doing a great job with each shot pulled. After all they probably do not get paid great and pull 100's of shots a day, they probably couldn't give a sh!t how that coffee tastes after a while. But on the flip side of that a local coffee shop I go to was opened by a former barista from Costa and he loves coffee and producing great tasting coffee for all of his customers and his shop is booming and just celebrated their 1 year of being open.


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Like most on here I'd pick an indy any day of the week but sometimes (depending on where you are and who you're with) it's necessary to get your coffee in a big chain. I much prefer Costa over Charbux or Nero. I've had perfectly acceptable cappuccino from Costa before if you avoid the bucket sized ones. Equally I've had absolutely dreadful coffee from them too (in a different town). Probably should have had tea.


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## espressotechno (Apr 11, 2011)

The Costa Express B2C machines @ the motorway services give consistently good coffee - probably because they're serviced on a regular basis by the Costa engineers.


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## skippy (Jun 30, 2016)

As high street coffee goes costa seem to have improved massively in the last few years. At least they don't roast all their beans to charcoal like Starbucks seem to.


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## Scotford (Apr 24, 2014)

Kyle T said:


> ... on the flip side ...


Quite a lot of high profile faces have come from such chains. They've all based their management training scheme on McDs which like it or not, is the best at hospitality training on earth.


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## AndyDClements (Aug 29, 2016)

I've used Costa ground in a few cold brews, it made an inoffensive coffee, nothing distinctive about the taste, think magnolia paint or vanilla flavour icecream. I guess it was to be expected, it has to be inoffensive, which translates as being slightly bland.


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## James811 (May 10, 2014)

I used Costa pre ground in those little red tins when I first got into coffee. I may get some again and try just to see what I make of it now


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Good idea in the interest of 'science'. It's amazing how your tastes can change after a while.


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## DavecUK (Aug 6, 2013)

grumpydaddy said:


> I have some. It is old and it smells less than lovely. You may have heard the expression "Take one for the team", well, just for kicks I made a few at home. All made with milk because I am not that brave and to each I added a level spoon of sugar. First of all they taste nothing like the cups purchased at a motorway services and they pour reasonably well too.
> 
> So, what have I learnt?
> 
> ...


Interested, I dropped onto their site.

http://www.costa.co.uk/about-us/quality/?utm_source=costa&utm_medium=internal&utm_content=headernav&utm_campaign=quality

Unfortunately the Video when I clicked it came up as private, but after a little perseverance I found it on youtube.

[video=youtube;R4RVRsHn-4s]





[/QUOTE]

Well just throwing out a few guesses here, employees are all going to be a bit different, for many it's a student job or summer job, many won't want to make their career in Costa. A good coffee largely depends on whether people care enough, or have the incentive to care. This goes from the bottom to the top of any large company and is embedded in their procedures and how well they are followed. I suspect machine cleaning can often be neglected as can grinder cleaning. Couple that with the nasty habit of leaving spent pucks in the PF can mean a poor tasting coffee on a slow day.

I would make a guess that the staff are busy and rarely get any meaningful feedback on the drinks they produce and within their particular branch are not easily able to make changes to improve it. On one forum I was on a Barista worked for a large chain and had a lot of ideas how to improve things, because he didn't like the way it was done.....not sure it ended well.

I also wanted to add that even so called coffee geeks with high end prosumer kit, leave their equipment in what I would call a dirty state....negating much of the money they spent on expensive kit.


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## Raptorex (Sep 10, 2016)

Do Costa sell the beans they use in 250g ish bags. I've bought from Cafe nero "their" espresso bags. But it's not even the stuff the use. Just a badged product.


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## FullBloomCoffee (Mar 19, 2015)

I would rather not drink coffee than drink a Costa.

I did a mystery cupping a while back where a costa and starbucks were hidden amongst the speciality roasters to show what not to do!

apparently because the majority of their drinks are massive (16-20oz of milk) they deliberately over roast their beans so that you can still taste the coffee, although this means that anything smaller tastes rank!


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## Mrboots2u (May 10, 2013)

I've had a couple of smaller drinks ( flat white 7-8oz ) with their old paradise street beans. These are defo roasted lighter than their standard blend and were fairly Umcomplex caramel sweet medium stuff


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

BeanAbout said:


> apparently because the majority of their drinks are massive (16-20oz of milk) they deliberately over roast their beans so that you can still taste the coffee, although this means that anything smaller tastes rank!


Of this I am fairly convinced. Bucket-ccino: go large or go elsewhere, if the coffee:milk ratio exceeds a certain point it gets grim. Best enjoyed as 'coffee cooler' (but WTF is that powder they sneak in?)

There is at least a coffee:milk ratio where it's drinkable though, as opposed to *$ which just tastes like milky charcoal.


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## filthynines (May 2, 2016)

hotmetal said:


> Best enjoyed as 'coffee cooler' (but WTF is that powder they sneak in?)


Good question: I asked this recently and was told it was a thickening agent. They overloaded mine and I ended up with a tasteless sludge.


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## filthynines (May 2, 2016)

Raptorex said:


> Do Costa sell the beans they use in 250g ish bags. I've bought from Cafe nero "their" espresso bags. But it's not even the stuff the use. Just a badged product.


I may be corrected on this, but from my own little bit of research (a couple of months ago) I came to the conclusion that they aren't the same thing. I can't begin to fathom why.

Not a fan of the Old Paradise. Not a huge fan of the standard Costa roast, compared to what I crank out myself; but it remains my go-to chain when I'm around the Midlands for work. I also can't see them going away, so I'm also a Whitbread (parent company) shareholder.


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## Deswahriff (Mar 7, 2016)

espressotechno said:


> The Costa Express B2C machines @ the motorway services give consistently good coffee - probably because they're serviced on a regular basis by the Costa engineers.


^^...this!

Am continually surprised at how decent these are!...they use real milk too - there's one in a petrol station on one of our cycling routes where we waited patiently while the assisitant refilled the machine with full-fat milk!


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## Missy (Mar 9, 2016)

I suppose it's what has been said here before, a decent bean to cup is going to beat all but the committed and supercapable. Only problem is they only have cow-lactations. Once they use soya....


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## hotmetal (Oct 31, 2013)

Udder nonsense


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