# Why is Costa Coffee tasteless?



## moonray

OK. So why do I go to Costa in the first place? Problem is, they seem to have the only coffee shops in motorway service stations, at least on the routes I frequent. So when I am desperate for a drink, I am limited in choice, i.e. Costa or Nothing.

But wherever I go, I cannot detect any flavour of coffee at Costa. Has anyone else found that? Today was typical. A1(M) Scotch Corner services in North Yorkshire. I watched the shot's being pulled. It seem to take the required 25-30 seconds, and the milk was foamed OK for a coffee chain. But it was like getting a cup of hot milk. What on earth do they do to achieve that?


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## icom102

Cant say i find them flavorless actually they quite nice


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## lake_m

When I'm forced into a Costas on the motorway, I always ask for an extra shot for that exact reason. Had a flat white once in Darlington and it was just hot milk. Took it back and complained. You'd think I'd insulted the Queen by the look on her face.


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## moonray

lake_m said:


> You'd think I'd insulted the Queen by the look on her face.


 It may actually have been the Queen. She is a lady of many talents









But seriously, I was wondering if it had something to do with beans they use or is it a barista training issue?


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## 4515

lake_m said:


> When I'm forced into a Costas on the motorway, I always ask for an extra shot for that exact reason.


Same here. When I was travelling to London and Edinburgh Id get a costa from Doncaster station. Always with an extra shot. Wasn't great but it was better than the free stuff that East Coast trains served


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## moonray

icom102 said:


> Cant say i find them flavorless actually they quite nice


 It is possible that my taste buds are not as sensitive as yours, or perhaps you have a talented local barista. But if the former, you should find the A1 a good route


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## icom102

Well any i have been to i find them ok if i didnt i would not be still going


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## Rhys

I use Costa machines in the petrol station as they grind on demand. I find it OK for a caffeine hit - although I have to add a few sugars! Taste wise (with sugar) I find them palatable. had an M&S coffee from a local garage and it was a bit bland tbh but was a hot drink. It was made from a bean to cup machine behind the counter, and the milk was steamed by the assistant. Don;t think Ill go to the M&S one again.


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## Mattius2

Too much milk. Far too much. Even a 'small' is a milk bucket. And a fairly bland blend. But mostly just milk drowned!


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## espressotechno

The Costa Express B2C machines on motorways tend to give better brews than from a Costa barista stall.

Probably due to the B2C machines being regularly serviced/calibrated by a Costa engineer.


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## moonray

espressotechno said:


> The Costa Express B2C machines on motorways tend to give better brews than from a Costa barista stall.
> 
> Probably due to the B2C machines being regularly serviced/calibrated by a Costa engineer.


So, you reckon the problem is with the espresso machines? That sounds plausible.


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## Whitefiver

Hmmm, I think the variability is down to the staff, some of whom are very good indeed, others couldn't give a hoot. I generally drink americanos with milk on the side so I can put in the required couple of drops. I do however have a sneaking regard for their cortados (depending who is pulling it).

YMMV of course.


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## buzz

I'd question the freshness of the roast.

My ex worked in Nero and the beans they use and sell have a BB date, not a roasted on date.

Also too much milk in Costa.

The b2c in petrol stations are vile.


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## Soll

Depends which Barista you have on the day. I find the one next door to me is a hit or miss saga, even my customers seem to think so and they're not into coffee as much as I am


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## DavecUK

lake_m said:


> When I'm forced into a Costas on the motorway, I always ask for an extra shot for that exact reason. Had a flat white once in Darlington and it was just hot milk. Took it back and complained. You'd think I'd insulted the Queen by the look on her face.


I usually don't drink the coffee at all from these places. It could be that there are different quality coffees they can use (are they franchises) and perhaps it has a high proportion of Robusta, which certainly lacks in the taste department. It's the coffee equivalent of rusk in processed foods.


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## Gaz|

I think that is the main reason for them pumping half the cup full of syrup and 1kg of sprinkles on the top lol


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## ajohn

The answer is to drink americano and milk to taste. Very very little in my case. They are not bad then. Wife and son wont drink those there as they are too bitter so always go for milk based. After all the whole idea of a flat white for instance is to drown out the real coffee taste for people (lots of them) that don't like it. Cappuccino ? Same thing only add some back by sprinkling cocoa on the top - again mostly drowned out via milk. If I have to drink one of those I make sure there is stacks of cocoa on it but they are best avoided.

Must admit purely via random selection I seem to usually find myself in Starbucks these days on motorways. I assume they are the same but did stop at a Little Chef once that also sold extra shots. The drink was disgusting without it so most paid for it. Maybe Costa are preparing to do the same thing or it's another case of shrinkflation. I haven't used either of them for some time now.

John

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## Stevie

I find it totally flavourless too.

Combination of lower quality beans, over roasted, stale, badly extracted (poor grind, not always fresh, volume of espresso in cup too high), burnt milk


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## db8000

A friend of a friend is a machine engineer. A bag of beans made its way from him to my work. It's leftovers from the bag he is given by Costa to calibrate the machine. At least that's the story, potentially with some Chinese whispering changing the exact details.

it has a best before date of 11 months from when we received it. Couldn't say when it was actually roasted compared to BB date.


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## moonray

I know some people like Costa, so no offence to you guys. It may just be me, but I find Costa consistently flavourless. It does seem to be the same at every location, regardless of the staff. I did think it might be part of the training. When they make a latte for example, the milk goes in first and the espresso is poured on top, at least when it is in one of those tall glasses. Is that a good technique? I would never do that myself.


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## d_lash

If your drinking a costa / Starbucks etc i reckon a flavourless cappuccino is as close to a win as you can expect. More usually it's burnt, bitter and generally unpleasant. Whether you think a cup of warm milk is worth the price is up to you! Their tea is pretty much a tea bag and hot water - can't go wrong.


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## ajohn

The burnt bitter etc comes from the blend of beans they use. Personally I find their cappuccino virtually tasteless so drink their americano with very little milk. I actually like the taste then but do prefer something smoother and stronger made at home - I put the shot in last though so they are long blacks.

The man who started Costa realised that it wasn't possible to get decent coffee on motorways. He was entirely correct. His tasting tongue was insured for millions, lots of people like the end result, millions of them but some don't. My wife for instance finds their milk based too bitter. I said tasteless but what that means is that yes I can taste coffee but prefer a lot more taste. Some people wont hence milk based to tone it down which still wont be sufficient for some people. Cappuccino is really weird in some respects - tone it down with milk and then add taste via cocoa powder or worse still sweet chocolate drink powder then shovel sugar into it. I don't use any sugar. It's funny stuff. Once some one stops using it even minute amounts can be tasted.

People mention use by dates. A couple of times I have bought larger quantities of fresh roasted beans off the usual type of supplier - they have added a use by date. It's months not weeks. Supermarket beans usually say consume in under 2 weeks once opened. Some one bought me a pack of one type. Ok for a week and a bit and then the taste dropped off at an alarming rate.







I've been wondering how they do this. Maybe it's something to do with how they are roasted. The use by date had several months on it.

John

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## tommyp215

d_lash said:


> If your drinking a costa / Starbucks etc i reckon a flavourless cappuccino is as close to a win as you can expect. More usually it's burnt, bitter and generally unpleasant. Whether you think a cup of warm milk is worth the price is up to you! Their tea is pretty much a tea bag and hot water - can't go wrong.


+1 to this. I Also find Costa makes me feel nervy, and anxious whether that's caused by the burnt coffee, £5 sandwiches, rows of diabetic inducing syrups or the latest 'coffee' invention that has nothing to do with coffee, I'm unsure.


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## urbanbumpkin

Put simply....because it's sh*te and it made by numbskulls


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## Mrboots2u

Old Paradise Street blend as a milk drink is 0laan acceptable bland choc and nuts brew, I've had a lot worse in some high end cafes with la marzoccos and mythos. And it's streets above Nero and starbucks.

They can even do latte art, which is what most people seem to think makes a quality drink.


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## fluffles

Mrboots2u said:


> Old Paradise Street blend as a milk drink is 0laan acceptable bland choc and nuts brew, I've had a lot worse in some high end cafes with la marzoccos and mythos. And it's streets above Nero and starbucks.
> 
> They can even do latte art, which is what most people seem to think makes a quality drink.


Agree with you there, it's decent enough if a little boring (to my tastes anyway). But happy to drink it if I'm stuck with a chain only options


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## Bruce Boogie

YEP ~ always need the extra shot at a Costa, but I still find them 100% better than Crapbucks!


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## Pal_1

The Costa express machines use a different coffee beans to the regular coffee shops.


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## Barry Cook

Why is it so tasteless? Probably a mixture of the sheer volume of milk/water that's diluting the espresso shot down, which is why an an industry insider once described them not as a coffee shop, but as somewhere that sold milk drinks.

Then throw in the fact that many of their "baristas" (I'm loathe to call them that) don't have the first clue on dropping a shot properly. This is nothing against the actual baristas themselves but purely down to the low level of training they're given.

Also ask yourself why they won't tell you what beans are in their 7-bean blend. Maybe it's because they use the lowest denominator in cost of what they buy and by using 7 "varieties" (which includes at least one robusta), but it would be wrong of me to suggest this so I won't







Go on, try asking them next time you're that desperate for a milk based drink, sorry, a coffee.


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## Mattcolnago

Thats incorrect, they use the same blend.


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## Mattcolnago

Pal_1 said:


> The Costa express machines use a different coffee beans to the regular coffee shops.


Thats incorrect, they use the exact same bean/blend


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## DougalMcGuire

I was speaking to someone who used to work in a Costa and it seemed to be quite a low dose of coffee that they were using? Though whilst he could remember what the dose was he just looked confused when I asked what size basket/portafilter it was.

The other thing is that they provide drinks for people who don't actually like coffee that much. The mass market is for drinks that aren't that strong and don't taste that great. It seems to be what people actually like for some reason. That and scaldingly hot.


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## moonray

DougalMcGuire said:


> The mass market is for drinks that aren't that strong and don't taste that great. It seems to be what people actually like for some reason. That and scaldingly hot.


You may have hit it there. Many people find coffee 'bitter', and prefer something just milky and brown. Like Bird's Mellow.


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## ajohn

I think there is a need to split the ones that provide motorway coffee into 3. Those on the motorway, those in regularly used coffee shops and the others which are effectively kiosk sort of places in train stations etc.

I drink americano in these though and add very little milk. I also like the taste their beans give. Motorway and coffee shops are usually ok the others can be very very mixed.







I've never tried the machines that are appearing in various places.

Milk based - for people who don't like the taste of coffee. Personally I think they should be banned. On the other hand if some one does like the taste of coffee they need rather a lot of it and it has to be pretty strong. For mass market that defeats the object of them.

It's a fact I have had decent americano in a number of places even those where the machine isn't used that much. ') Can't add much milk though but I don't at home either.

John

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## espressotechno

Same blend of beans in the Express machines as behind the counter: The engineer isn't going to cart cases of different beans in his van. He's there to check/adjust the machine settings.


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## Drewster

working dog said:


> ...........it was better than the free stuff that East Coast trains served


I am trying to think of anything..... well anything you might realistically attempt to drink.. that would fail that particular test!


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## moonray

Drewster said:


> I am trying to think of anything..... well anything you might realistically attempt to drink.. that would fail that particular test!


Stagecoach have lost the franchise now. The way things are going, it will be "Costa East Coast" running the services...


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## Mrboots2u

I think James Hoffmans 2018 predictions are proabably spot on when he says Costa will go into a niche specialty in some shops. They need to find a way to grow . ...


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## Scotford

Mrboots2u said:


> I think James Hoffmans 2018 predictions are proabably spot on when he says Costa will go into a niche specialty in some shops. They need to find a way to grow . ...


There was an article in the Grauniad the other day about how Costa etc have/are about to hit peak saturation and to even attempt to try to niche themselves would be slightly futile.

This linked in with JimSevens late night Cabernet-fuelled musings on acquisition could mean that they'd start buying ready made specialty brands and run them as a pimped out specialty brand under the Costa franchise.


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## Graeme

When Costa started doing flat whites, there was a small costa in the building I worked in. The baristas had to teach themselves how to do a flat white and the fern leaf latte art when they had a quiet afternoon by watching videos on YouTube. So that's how much they care about their staff training.


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## Mrboots2u

And yet whenever I go to one they deliver pretty good latte art so must have worked.


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## Missy

I was working in a costa when they introduced flat whites. All the senior team (managers and barista maestro's) went away to the training centre to be taught, full day course. They returned and cascaded the training, plus recipe cards with strict instructions, and an encouragement to keep practicing (with permission to use coffee and milk as required until it was right)

I still sucked at it, mainly because my upselling KPIs meant I was almost exclusively on the till... Explaining that the reason the new drink was expensive is that it's a speciality coffee with fancy milk, not a white Americano, and no it doesn't come in the bucket size, but would you like an almond croissant and a bottle of water with your half shot skinny latte with cream and marshmallows?


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## Benjijames28

I work for a shopping centre with lots of coffee shops, and they are all terrible! Best option is maybe m and s, but even their coffee is rubbish if the wrong person makes it.

The Costa staff are bad in general but they at least give 25 percent discount so it's not so bad for a cortado in the morning.

I've seen them dialing in the grinder in the morning and it's no wonder the coffee taste so bad. There's pretty much no crema in the shots. The assistant manager who is acting manager right now doesn't even like coffee. So she's not tasting it she is just dialing it in by timing the ratios.

They also have a tendancy to warm the milk to near boiling point. I've mentioned this to them before and sometimes I get it done at the correct temp of about 60 degrees. They tell me that their training course told them to do it to 60 but customers complain the coffee is cold.

I even witnessed an old couple order their lattes extra hot the other day.

Explains a lot.


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## The Systemic Kid

Benjijames28 said:


> I even witnessed an old couple order their lattes extra hot the other day.


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## Mrboots2u

Sit in any cafe Costa or not and you will end up seeing people return drinks for not being hot enough. Wanting super hot lattes is not the preserve of Costa or chain customers.


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## MildredM

Mrboots2u said:


> Sit in any cafe Costa or not and you will end up seeing people return drinks for not being hot enough. Wanting super hot lattes is not the preserve of Costa or chain customers.


Indeed. Nor is it the preserve of old people


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## IZ2018

Out of the top 3 coffee chains in the Uk, I like Cafe Nero the best and Costa the worst.


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## IggyK

I had an Americano once blew my tongue off. Must have been servered at very near boiling point.


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## tradersmith

Hey guys, So i used to be an area manager for Costa and were my love for coffee started. Reading through all these comments and I do see where your all coming from. Ill tell you now poor coffee is down to poor training and laziness. All these's brands are just there to pump coffee out to the mass's! and 9/10 customer really don't have a clue what they are drinking. I loved it when someone came in and started asking questions about coffee but most Costa customers don't care as long as it has some sort of syrup in it.


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## The Systemic Kid

tradersmith said:


> Costa customers don't care as long as it has some sort of syrup in it.


...to mask the over-roasted, stale and bitter coffee flavour.


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## Jony

I had to meet someone the other day I had a Hot chocolate, someone came in asked for de caff skinny latte with some sort of flavour cinnamon maybe, and a few extra hot latte,WTF


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## Mrboots2u

IZ2018 said:


> Out of the top 3 coffee chains in the Uk, I like Cafe Nero the best and Costa the worst.


Opposite to me


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## Luke.

Mrboots2u said:


> Opposite to me


I would say Costa and Nero are on par followed by Starbucks. But, I may be slightly biased having worked at Costa!


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## Donegali

Interesting thread this, I used to be a huge fan of Costa until I tried a few 'artisan' shops in London. One thing I didn't find was that Costa was tasteless, if anything I always found it was quite bitter. The comment at the beginning of the thread intrigued me, flat whites were designed for people that didn't want to taste coffee? I moved over to flat whites because I found the espresso flavour came through more and have since moved to Cortados for the same reason. Is my palate all wrong?!?!?


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## lmulli

Costa is horrible, I much prefer Starbucks myself.


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## GingerBen

lmulli said:


> Costa is horrible, I much prefer Starbucks myself.


Opposite to me, Costa is alright, Starbucks is the devils brew


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## CaffeinatedFox

Costa is ok for the coffee fix if in need but i cant stomach starbucks for me they have the most bitter coffee imaginable. Other than that a lot of chains have their coffee roasted too dark, apparently thats how they are able to deliver a consistant taste no matter the seasononal changes that the coffee would have that alters taste. So they basically roast all the flavour out so it all tastes the same. Then god knows what the turn around some places have i know of certain coffee shops over order so much coffee they have roasted beans stored for months then they grind and have it sit in a doser for ages! Thank god for home espresso haha


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## walakalulu

Starbucks seems like hot water with a splash of essence of coffee.


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## cloughy

Although I don't have the best equipment in the world my flat whites are starting to taste so good I've given up getting coffee out and about, i'd rather wait till I get home. Never thought this would be the case! Bar has been raised and costa (used to be my usual) doesn't cut it no more


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## DavTee

But their coconut black flat whites are handcrafted by Costa's expert baristas and finished with a Costa florette They are surely amazing?


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## Dumnorix

I also wonder how well their equipment is cleaned and maintained. I believe that could make a big difference to the quality as well.


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## ashcroc

Dumnorix said:


> I also wonder how well their equipment is cleaned and maintained. I believe that could make a big difference to the quality as well.


Since their goal is the ability to provide a repeatable cup no matter which location you're buying from, it wouldn't surprise me if is cleaned & maintained regularly.


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## Mrboots2u

DavTee said:


> But their coconut black flat whites are handcrafted by Costa's expert baristas and finished with a Costa florette They are surely amazing?


They are actually pretty good at rosettas instore.

Half the forum would kill to be able to do em.

Again a flat white with Old Paradise street isnt the worst coffee i have ever had. It's not the most complex but it does a decent job of chocolate and sweet.


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## Missy

Dumnorix said:


> I also wonder how well their equipment is cleaned and maintained. I believe that could make a big difference to the quality as well.


I've worked there. It's pretty meticulous. Or it was at my store. Some others left a lot to be desired (roadchef services always seem grim)


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## Benjijames28

Costa could be worse.

I had one other week that I was convinced was gonna give me a few days off work. It was a cortado using their special blend coffee, I got about half way down it started to taste really funny, like sliney, just weird. I gave it a sniff and it smelt very strange. Straight in bin. Felt sick rest of day. I spoke to manager about it and only thing she could say is maybe it was the milk, but she will taste a shit from the special blend.


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## Jez H

I went in with my daughter today. My tap water was fine. The staff, however, miserable as sin.


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## ashcroc

Jez H said:


> I went in with my daughter today. My tap water was fine. The staff, however, miserable as sin.


I'm not surprised. Do you know how difficult it is to get decent art on tap water?


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## hotmetal

Benjijames28 said:


> Costa could be worse.
> 
> I had one other week that I was convinced was gonna give me a few days off work. ... Felt sick rest of day. I spoke to manager about it and only thing she could say is maybe it was the milk, but she will taste a *shit* ...


Good Lord that's customer service, most wouldn't even check the coffee! Guess you had those days off sick then?!

'Crap' puns aside, maybe there was cleaner in it? Also if they overheated the milk it can make you feel nauseous if you drink it too hot.

I once had coffee from Costa that was utterly awful, I mean not even with my coffee head on, dishwater by anyone's standards. But I will say that usually it's OK if a bit dark for my liking, but still preferable in a pinch to a) no coffee and b) Charbucks or Caffe Zero.

_______

The only V8 I'm likely to own comes in one litre tetrapaks and tastes like celery.

Cushions were invented by women to stop men from sitting on the sofa.


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