I just wanted to give some praise for a very traditional Italian espresso that is 30% robusta and reminds me of typical Roman cafe espresso (in all the good ways). The blend is called Pregiato and it's roasted by the Italian company, MokaSirs. I've been sent a couple of 1kg bags by their US distributor a couple times and I really enjoy this coffee, probably more than I should! LOL I have no idea what the roast date is on my bag, but it pulls LIKE A DREAM every time and the robusta in it makes it, easily, the prettiest coffee to pull with a naked portafilter. It's very well behaved, never channels, spits, etc. Seriously, this is a VERY good-looking coffee, so if videos of your extractions is your thing, I can't think of a better coffee for this purpose. Overall it's a "medium" roast, little to no oil or oil sheen on the beans, which is a nice change of pace from REALLY traditional Italian blends, and the robusta certainly adds some bitterness, but I like it and find it well-balanced. There is essentially no high-end note and it's a "tastes like coffee" coffee, so it's not really a "wow" coffee, but people who like those traditional Italian cafe flavors and enjoy seeing a giant crema that looks like a Guinness pour, this one's for you. I imagine it would play well with milk, but I take it unadulterated. This is a very fun coffee to pull and I personally like the flavors (although I do prefer brighter, fruit forward espresso for my daily drinkers), but there's just something about it that makes this one of my favorite coffees even though it's not the flavors that make it such for me.

This is great to hear! I'd love to try some of this coffee. Been itching to try something like this for a while now. Do you have a link where this is available?

Lots of people like Caffe Lusso's Lionshare that features, I believe, 20% robusta peaberry. It's very good, but personally I'm not a fan of robusta.

I tried this coffee and I can confirm that it's great, surprisingly good for such a high percentage robusta - you don't get the burnt taste

I too tend to stick with Traditional Italian flavors and coffees that contain robusta. I used to stick with Lavazza super Crema as my go to. However I just tried the Nicoletti 1972 espresso from Amazon (fresh roasted in Brooklyn) which contains 50 percent robusta and it is absolutely fantastic.

"Traditional" Italian espresso, like much else in Italy, differs a good deal between the north and south of the peninsula. Classic northern roasts (e.g. Illy, Treviso; Lavazzo, Turin) are more or less equivalent to American "city" roasts, while southern offerings (e.g. Kimbo, Naples) are a good deal darker and more likely to contain robusta in blends.

I wasn't sure if it was OK to mention where to buy it or not. MokaSirs' Pregiato blend is available from Si Espresso here: https://www.si-espresso.com/shop. They sent me the Selezione blend, too, which is 20% robusta. I haven't tried that yet.

I have not been able to find roast dates on these bags, maybe they're well-hidden or non-existant. I don't know if it's a factor of the robusta, or what, but at least with the Pregiato, it gives me no problems whatsoever and the 1kg bag lasts me a LONG time. I have also been very successful freezing this in regular Ziplocs with no issues whatsoever.

EddyQ wrote:Have you noticed the roast dates? Getting a fresh good Italian roast is usually pretty difficult.

Im going to start a separate thread tomorrow morning, but this thread is so similar, I wanted to comment. I mentioned a while ago in the Saka coffee thread where we were all discussing Arabica/Robusta classic Italian espresso blends that I've been bugging my friend Philip at Caffe Lusso to consider making 70/30 blend and he just did.

He sent me two samples to try, a 60/40 blend and a 70/30 of Gran Miscela Carmo/ Peaberry Robusta that was roasted fresh on Tuesday and arrived on Friday. I think he's got a big market he can capture, because he does use higher quality greens than many traditional Italian big name roasters.

I'll disclose it there, and here, that I didn't pay for these, and he is a friend, so my bias should be clear. But I liked his stuff before I knew him