07-04-2025
‘This smells like a mechanic's ashtray': The best and worst supermarket coffee beans
The Italians are different to us, when it comes to coffee at least. So says Dominic Borel, who, with his cousin Ben Harvey, runs three Italian restaurants in Bristol. The dark-eyed Borel, whose grandfather Aldo Bianchi was born on Lake Como to a family of chefs and restaurant managers, explains to me, ' The Italians drink coffee in a fast and furious way – elbow on the counter, drain the cup and go – so their coffee is lighter and less powerful than ours.'
That's right: a shot of espresso, steam-powered speedily through a machine, might taste strong but contains less caffeine than a 150ml cup of coffee made using the same amount of ground coffee, and given a lengthy steep in a cafetière. Those tiny espresso cups play a part too, agrees Borel, 'It's the culture of a tiny glass of wine or coffee and a catch-up in the bar, keep on moving to the next spot – keeping up with the news, who's selling their farm, who's back, who has wood to sell – all the little village tales.'
It's a romantic vision, and maybe explains why Italian coffee is holding its own, despite being unfashionable with hipster coffee drinkers, who prefer lighter roasted 'speciality' coffee. Italian-style coffee machines dominate in cafés, with the four most popular drinks – latte, Americano, cappuccino and flat white – all being based on espresso, that most Italian of coffees. The popularity of at-home coffee machines is growing too and supermarket sales of coffee beans are up 7 per cent on four years ago, according to market researcher Kantar. We bought 2.5 million bags of espresso coffee in the past year alone.
Borel and I set to tasting. We borrowed a gleaming red Smeg espresso machine, all Vespa curves and Fellini cool, which had no problem grinding the beans and shooting out 13 perfect double shots of espresso (as you would hope, as it comes with an £849 price tag). My daughter, a trained barista, came home to work the beast. Then, in an un-Italian way, we sniffed, sipped and tasted – no knocking it back, though we did keep our elbows on the counter.
