# Anyone roasting and blending Robusta?



## FrankG (Sep 9, 2016)

As the title says, is anyone doing anything with Robusta? Does it roast the same as other beans? Any profile suggestions or blending tips welcome!


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## froggystyle (Oct 30, 2013)

Use very little, say upto 10% of the blend otherwise it will taste like crap..... Roasting can be tricky depending on quality of beans, some are garbage and you will see the beans at various sizes, broken beans,fugly beans....

If you do buy some then buy from rave, there robusta are a decent quality.

Crap beans will be a nightmare to roast and you will gets very uneven roast.


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## FrankG (Sep 9, 2016)

froggystyle said:


> Use very little, say upto 10% of the blend otherwise it will taste like crap..... Roasting can be tricky depending on quality of beans, some are garbage and you will see the beans at various sizes, broken beans,fugly beans....
> 
> If you do buy some then buy from rave, there robusta are a decent quality.
> 
> Crap beans will be a nightmare to roast and you will gets very uneven roast.


Thanks. So if it's only upto 10% is it worth it? Just what do they bring to blend?


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## NickR (Jul 1, 2011)

Over the past few months I've been trying to make an Italian style espresso blend using a small amount of Robusta to give crema and viscosity. I've had Robusta before and it was fine. This must have been of a much highier quality than my current beans. These literally stink. Just putting 2-3 grames of these in a blend is enough for them to dominate the overall flavour. I'm now using Monsooned Malibar to provided mouth feel and crema. I think the message is that as with Arabica, there are huge variations in the quality and flavour of the beans.


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## FrankG (Sep 9, 2016)

Thanks. On the basis of the above, I don't think I will experiment with Robusta after all.


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## Glenn (Jun 14, 2008)

There are some very well roasted high-grade Robustas out there that can be used as single origin coffee.

Curators Coffee Gallery (Margaret St, London) had one for quite some time (not sure if they still do) and it was lovely.

I tried it mainly with milk, so cannot comment on it as an espresso.

Don't discount it if you can get hold of the quality stuff (not commercial grade mechanically removed product)


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## Kahweol (Apr 26, 2016)

I doubt many of the people complaining about robusta have actually made an effort to taste it! Obviously its not going to work in a delicate filter brew, but certainly has a place in espresso blends. When using up the rest of my green beans I recently roasted a pure batch of Magundi sundried. I was extremely hesitant, but ended up trying it by itself. It certainly didn't have the finesse of a good arabica, but was surprisingly good by itself in milk, and was reasonably drinkable as a shot. I can't describe the flavour, but there was a unique element to it, along with the african-type fruitiness of a sundried bean. The crema was absurdly abundant and richly coloured with huge body. OK, I won't be drinking it by itself in the future, but now I know what it brings to the blend.


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## Kahweol (Apr 26, 2016)

I'll add that for roasting, a higher temp is needed to reach 2nd crack and hence it is best roasted separately. I tried to get around this by roasting with a fairly large graded base bean, which I would want to take a minute into 2nd crack anyway. Robusta is small in size and will roast a bit faster than arabicas. Try adding 10-15% quality robusta to a medium or dark espresso and see how you like it.


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