Union Hand-roasted Coffee Organic Ethiopia Yirgacheffe

Bought from Waitrose for £4.75. This is gentle yet packed with flavour. Great balance. Pleasant floral acidity and lively roast notes. I like this.

6/10

Ethiopian coffee

Twinings Lavender Earl Grey

An attractive packet with individually wrapped tea bags for that special occasion. The lavender flavour is subdued, and gently enhances the black tea and bergamont. A pleasant and refreshing drink.


Date: July 2014  Score: 5

***

Twinings

Douwe Egberts

Douwe Egberts is a coffee brand by Dutch coffee company D.E. Master Blenders 1753 which was founded in 1753 as a grocery shop. It acquired several other tea, coffee and tobacco companies, before being taken over by the American Sara Lee company who then sold off the tobacco interests, before splitting the coffee division out into D.E. Master Blenders 1753.

Dark Roast (5)

Deep yet soft roast flavours. Good body. Easy drinking. No character, but it does the job, and it's quite likeable. Probably the Douwe Egberts I have liked the most..

Score: 4

Rich Roast (4) 

As expected from a dark roast, this is full of roast flavours. It's not aggressive, and not too bitter, and if you fancy the taste of burnt toast, then this works well enough. There's some chocolate sweetness to soften the dark roast flavours. Not a coffee to enthuse over, but drinkable.

Nice creamy chocolate notes. This is a robust and flavoursome coffee. Not aggressive, but certainly firmly roasty. Of the DE coffees I have tried, this comes in the middle.

Score: 4

Medium Roast (3) 

This doesn't seem to know what it's doing. The flavours are edging toward dark roast, and there's no fruit, floral or acidic notes, and no character.

This is a powdery and indifferent coffee. Not offensive, but lacking in any character or anything distinctive. It's drinkable, but so are many other coffees.

Score: 3

Coffee roasts

Taste tests

This page is for taste comparisons.



5 July 2014
Douwe Egberts Rich Roast 4
As expected from a dark roast, this is full of roast flavours. It's not aggressive, and not too bitter, and if you fancy the taste of burnt toast, then this works well enough. There's some chocolate sweetness to soften the dark roast flavours. Not a coffee to enthuse over, but drinkable.

Douwe Egberts Medium Roast 3
This doesn't seem to know what it's doing. The flavours are edging toward dark roast, and there's no fruit, floral or acidic notes, and no character.

Costa Coffee 3
Watery and powdery with a basic cheap coffee flavour. There's an acceptable creaminess to this, and it's drinkable, but it lacks character and tastes cheap. This could be instant coffee.



Ethiopian/French Roast blind test 15 June 2014

Carrefour Ethiopian
*Full bodied. Creamy. Sweet. Lots of dark, burnt character. Little acidity. Lots of bitterness. Least favourite.

Sainsbury's Ethiopian
*Light and fruity. Inclines to being a bit watery. A pleasant drink, though feels under brewed. Pleasant lychee aroma and flavour. My favourite.

Lidl Ethiopian
*Watery mouthfeel with bitterness coming through. Little character. Some butter.

Sainsbury's French Roast / Strength 4
* Big body. Quite powdery. Lots of roast, but lacks elegance. There's a lot of impact on this, but no finesse. Parma violets in the middle with a little squeeze of sweetness. Tastes cheap.


Ethiopian blind test 24 May 2014

Carrefour Ethiopian
* Initially powdery and bitter, this settled into a rounded and complex coffee with some deep and dark citric notes - violets and lime. The bitter powdery feel returned at times to drag it down. Initially best, moved down to second due to inconsistency, and the unpleasant bitter powder.

Asda Ethiopian
* Initially weak, watery, and fruity, with a mildly acidic character, this gradually emerged as a buttery and reasonably pleasant drink. Lacked character, but was inoffensive and pleasantly drinkable. Became a contender as the butter notes emerged.

Morrisons Ethiopian
* Initially creamy and complex, with an impression of a rounded and pleasant coffee, gradually more and more acidic notes came though until they began to dominate. Least interesting, but more stable of the samples. Initially second, but moved up to first due to consistency.

Sainsbury's French style Fairtrade ground coffee

This is a UK roast strength 4, which is supposed to be a dark roast, though Sainsbury's describe it as a "medium" roast, and it does have some sweetness, some floral and fruit notes, that one wouldn't expect from a dark roast. There is also less bitterness and less overall roast character than one would expect from what is considered one of the darker roasts.

Roasty with acidic tones, some floral notes not expected from a dark roast. A fairly rounded coffee, though lacking depth and character. A little watery.

On the whole an acceptable cheap coffee; though lacking in character, it is drinkable.

Score: 5/10

Coffee roasts

Sainsbury's own label tea and coffee

Costa Roast & Ground Coffee At Home

I first tried this in a blind tasting against Morrisons Ethiopian coffee and Sainsbury's Viennese roast. Neither of those coffees are top quality, and are a little bitter, so this stood out as sweet and delectable. Drinking it on its own I find that it is rather mild and non-distinctive. Drinkable and pleasant enough, yes, but lacking in character. I can see it as being a successful coffee to serve in bulk in a large coffee shop chain because it is so inoffensive. It is the lack of character and distinction that makes it successful as a popular blend. I'd be quite happy to drink this again. The sweetness is appealing, but there are no highs. While it is pleasant, there is no joy or pleasure in drinking it.

Costa is Britain's largest coffee shop chain, and the second largest in the world. The company was started in 1971 by Bruno and Sergio Costa in Lambeth as a roaster and distributor of their own blend they call "Mocha Italia" - the blend is a secret, though contains six parts arabica to one part robusta; they opened their first shop in 1978 on Vauxhall Bridge Road, and expanded sufficently to excite the interest of Whitbread, who took them over in 1995. Reasons vary for the appeal of the company, ranging from the taste of the coffee to the mature, literary imagery associated with the brand.

Lidl Melangerie Ethiopian Sidamo

£1.99 for 200g from Lidl; roasted to UK strength 3, and from the Sidamo region, this promises to be a tasty and good value coffee. Yet, each time I have tried it so far, it has struck me as being very crude and bitter. I have reduced the amount of coffee I put in, and reduced the brewing time, yet still it remains a fairly one dimensional bitter roast. Reducing the amount of beans and brewing time makes it watery and thin, but does little to reduce the crude bitterness or improve the flavour. There's no character here. No acidity at all. And this tastes like a cheap strong roast, rather than the characterful, mild and flavoursome coffee I expect from Ethiopia, especially from one of the best regions.

This is the worse Ethiopian coffee I have yet encountered.


2/10

Lidl Tea & Coffee

Ethiopian coffee