Alan wrote:Thanks for this. The coffee doesn't visually look that darkly roasted. It doesn't have oil on it and it isn't black with burned spots like some french roast, for instance. It must be the larger robusta beans that make it such a larger volume.

Robusta beans aren't necessarily larger. I think that on average they are smaller than arabica beans, but it depends on which beans you compare them to. Does Blue Bottle even say what their blend of beans is? Or what percentage is robusta? For that matter, why would larger beans be less dense in the first place?

The Italian coffee that I mentioned that has a packing density of 0.31g/ml is 60% robusta. I have another coffee from the same roaster that is 100% arabica. It is roasted similarly. I measured it to be 0.33g/ml. It's almost the same density despite having no robusta in the blend.

@Alan what you describe sounds like what they told me.. A good shot of that coffee should be heavily viscous to the bottom of the cup.. rich deep chocolate, and have a looonnnggg lingering chocolate finish... i can remember the finish literally an hour after drinking the shot... A very nice coffee in the repertoire to trade off with juicy ethiopians (like a natural processed heirloom, or a nice geisha)... kinda makes me want to order some right now