Overview

I never was a barista. And I certainly am not a professional cupper. But I cannot imagine a morning without at least one, if not two, lattes. We make our lattes at home. We recently upgraded our espresso machine from the Breville BES860XL to the BES920XL.

So, now it is the time to consider upgrading our coffee beans. First, it is important to note that espresso is a brewing method, not a type of coffee bean. Although you may see beans marketed as “espresso beans”, that is simply the recommended brewing method that highlights that coffee’s flavor profile.

Similarly, espresso isn’t a specific roast. In fact, the roast will differ by geographic region. West Coast roasts tends to be dark. East Coast roasts tend to be light. Italian roasts tend to be medium. There is no “right” roast; all are a matter of personal taste.

In the past, we drank whole bean, medium roast illy coffee. Since illy beans can be pricey and not necessarily fresh, we also tried several different vaccuum-packed Lavaza coffees ordered from Amazon. And, we tried the Parisi Bolivian organic whole bean coffee at our local Costco.

With Amazon recently acquiring Whole Foods, we decided to taste test many varieties of their artisan house brand, Allegro Coffee. While there are a number of highly rated, botique coffee roasters including JBC Coffee Roasters and Intelligentsia1, the advantage of Allegro is that you can buy it at any local Whole Foods store. Below is our opinion as to the best Allegro coffee beans that you can buy at Whole Foods.

First, a few of our guidelines:

• Our primary goal is a coffee bean best suited for our morning lattes, not a black coffee.
• We eliminated any dark roast and any decaf coffees. Not only are dark roast coffees too acidic and charred for our taste but there’s no point in buying high end beans if what you are really tasting is the roast, not the bean.
• Additionally, we only buy whole bean coffee. Ground coffee, even if vacuum-sealed, quickly tastes stale. Further, it may not be ground fine enough for making espresso.

Recommended Coffees

Following are the coffees that we have tried:

Blends

Allegro Organic Continental Blend

This is our favorite blend. It is a medium roast. It combines beans from Ethiopia, Sumatra, and Latin America. It turns out to be one of Consumer Reports highest rated coffees too.2

Allegro Café la Dueña

This is a distant third choice to the Continental Blend and Organic Mexico. It is a combination of beans from Latin America and the Pacific Rim.

Single Origin

Allegro Kenyan Grand Cru

We recommend Grand Cru but we felt that Trader Joe’s AA beans tasted better.

Organic Mexico

This is our second choice after Continental Blend. It is a light roast.

Not Recommended

Allegro Vienna Roast

This is supposedly a medium roast coffee but it was far too dark roasted for our tastes.

Blue Nile Blend

My wife and I both found that this blend had an aftertaste that we disliked.

Early Bird Blend

This is a harsh coffee that needs to be diluted to avoid overpowering your latte.

Colombia Augustino Forest

At the opposite end of the spectrum,the Augustino is a very nice coffee but it is not suitable as espresso for your latte. It is such a light coffee that your latte tastes like (barely) coffee flavored milk.

Updated on February 23rd, 2019