NOTE: Coffee is shipped Mon, Wed and Fri

What Is the Best Coffee to Use at Home in My Espresso Machine?

Are you one of those fancy folk with your own espresso machine at home?

Congratulations, we can be friends.

Given your investment in both the machine itself and the valuable space on your kitchen counter, we thought you’d probably be interested to know the best coffee to use in your new toy.

At Capital Coffee, we’ve been roasting coffee for nearly 40 years, mostly for commercial clients (coffee shops and restaurants) in London and around the UK. Much of our coffee is roasted and blended with espresso machines in mind. 

Espresso machines brew coffee at 9-15 bar pressure (depending on whether they have a rotary or vibration pump). For comparison, your kitchen tap is about 3 bar pressure. We need this high pressure to extract all of the goodness from the coffee in just 20-30 seconds - this is the whole point of the espresso machine. 

It means that coffee blends, rather than single origin coffees, are much more suited to use with your espresso machine. The delicate flavours of single origin coffees can be lost in the intensity of the brewing process, but a well-thought out blend is just right.

We blend our single origin beans together to create blends with a certain taste and texture.

So, which coffee is best for your at-home espresso machine?

We’ve selected 3 of our coffees and created an Espresso Tasting Pack so you can find the perfect coffee for you.

You can order in bags of 250g, 500g, or 1000g and discover which is your personal favourite.

Our Supreme blend is 90% arabica, 10% robusta. Supreme is a great starting point for espresso, something you might find in Milan. 10% Robusta beans means that it will cut through the milk well and tastes good with or without sugar. We serve this in our Claygate Shop.

Our Reserve blend is 100% Arabica. Reserve is a more refined version of Supreme. Roasted a little lighter and with Guatemalan (instead of Robusta), it is far more mellow. Perfect for after lunch or dinner, we sell most of this blend to restaurants. We find it a little delicate for an early morning cup.

Our Barista blend is 100% Arabica. Barista is a bolder version of Reserve. Sumatra Lintong Grade 1 is added to Reserve, giving body and complexity. Our new favourite. We serve this in our Cobham Shop.

There’s no best blend; there are best times and ways to enjoy each one according to your personal taste.