# Starbucks Medium House Blend



## brun (Dec 26, 2011)

the mrs recently went to Chicago, and having bought me the Gaggia Classic for xmas, she brought me back some beans as a little present









with all the talk on here of Starbucks/Costa/Nero etc etc being rubbish i wasnt expecting the result i got !

when i opened the bag the first thing i noticed is that they are roasted very dark, and oily, and this is supposedly a medium roast !.......they are pretty black and a little smokey smelling, in fact ive tried to do a comparison pic with Lusty Glaze to show you what they look like but ive not got very good lighting, Lusty is described as a 'Medium plus' roast, so not quite dark but heading that way

























my Lusty is now about 2 months old so ive had to get the grind finer now, but considering this Starbucks stuff was just off the shelf and not roasted to order i was expecting it to be stale and having to get the grinder at its finest setting to get a shot, far from it !........Ive had to make the grind coarser, and down dose to 14g to stop totally choking the machine, way off the Lusty setting, and the one drink ive made from this so far, i let the shot run for just over a minute, and it was fantastic

bold, earthy tasting, lots of body to it, no sourness whatsoever which i seem to have experienced with every other bean so far, ive actually made a really tasty americano with it which is to my tastes, not of this citrus bullshit, ive made a *coffee* !!!

ive no idea if the UK Starbucks beans would be similar, if this bag is roasted freakishly dark and bagged incorrectly, but for my tastes its spot on, if your fed up of chasing a good coffee and getting all these sour drinks, maybe give these a try or something equally as dark


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## Earlepap (Jan 8, 2012)

Have you tried any beans from Coffee Real? I had a couple espresso blends from them a while ago and both were pretty dark. Not particularly my taste but by no means bad. Might be worth you giving them a shot.


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## jimbow (Oct 13, 2011)

I had similar experiences to Earlepap with Coffee Real and their 'Gone to Lunch' espresso blend - it was quite darkly roasted and not really to my taste. I find in general that darker roasted coffees and coffees naturally lower in acidity tend to be more forgiving of under extraction than the more acidic and lighter roasted - some dark roasts even favour slight under extraction. This coupled with the fact that darker roast coffees tend to be less dense and so yield their solids more easily, means that it is much less likely to get the sourness associated with under extracted acidic coffee. With darker roasts, higher doses, a much coarser grind and shorter extraction time tend to work better. Whilst forgiving under extraction, dark roast coffees really do not react at all well to over extraction - tasting really bitter.

If you fancy trying another dark roast you could try Black Chough from Hands On.


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## JohnnieWalker (Aug 24, 2011)

I'm personally not a fan of Starbucks coffee, too dark for me, as you all know I'm a huge Costa coffee lover.

I'm surprised you needed to grind coarser and would have thought that pulling it for 1 minute would result in a sink shot.

Are there any roast/produced/packaged dates on the bag?

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Costa Coffee Beans, Ground Coffee & Syrups available at http://CoffeeDelivered.co.uk


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## brun (Dec 26, 2011)

just a best before July 2012


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## tribs (Feb 21, 2012)

I was bought some Starbucks beans for my birthday. Looks like identical packaging. These are Sumatran Single Origin. Bought in the UK. Not opened yet.


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