Best Coffee Beans for Espresso

There is no such thing as an espresso bean

Every coffee on this page is an ordinary arabica coffee. What makes it an espresso is a decision the roaster made: how dark to roast it and what to blend it with so it tastes right at nine bars of pressure and a ratio of about one part coffee to two parts liquid. A coffee roasted for filter can be pulled as a shot, and some light-roast lovers do exactly that, but it is harder to get right and often tastes sour. Our explainer on espresso beans vs coffee beans goes into why the label is about roast and intent, not a different plant.

Medium, medium-dark or dark

Roast level is the biggest single choice here. A medium espresso keeps more of the coffee's own fruit and acidity: the Intelligentsia Black Cat Classic Espresso lists cherry, cola and orange. A medium-dark roast moves towards sugar and cocoa, and is easier to pull sweet: the Intelligentsia Sublunar Espresso lists molasses, cacao and brown sugar. A dark roast such as Equator Jaguar Espresso tastes mainly of chocolate and spice and holds its own in a large latte. If you drink espresso straight, start at medium. If most of your shots end up in milk, medium-dark or dark will carry through it better.

Blend or single origin

Most espresso is a blend, because a blend can balance a sweet base, a fruity accent and body from a heavier coffee. Equator Jaguar names all three of its components, two Honduran co-ops and a Sumatra, which is rare. The alternative is a single coffee or a single farm: the Spirit Origin Honduran Espresso Blend joins two coffees from one Honduran farm, roasted medium-dark at origin. Several of Intelligentsia's espressos are from Brazil alone, which gives the low-acid, nutty and chocolate base Brazil is known for.

Certified organic, and decaf

Two coffees here carry certifications. The Intelligentsia Organic Black Cat Espresso is organic, from Colombian and Ethiopian coffees, and it is also the highest score on this page. Equator Jaguar is USDA Organic and Fair Trade. For an evening shot there is the Intelligentsia Decaf Black Cat Espresso, a medium roast Brazilian decaf with cocoa, turbinado sugar and apple in its notes.

What a shot costs

Most of the espressos here cost $17.50 to $19.95 for a bag and $42 to $46 a kilo, which is about 75 to 85 cents for an 18 g double shot. Two cost a great deal more: the Intelligentsia Fruit Bat Espresso, a Kenyan and Ethiopian coffee with blood orange and black currant notes, is $77.60 a kilo, and the Spirit Origin blend is $72.55 a kilo in its six-bag pack. The cheapest per kilo are the Cooper's Cask Brazil and the Black Rifle AK-Espresso, both around $35, though both score low with us, mostly because their roasters publish less about sourcing and freshness.

Freshness matters more for espresso

Espresso is less forgiving of old coffee than filter. As beans age they lose the gas that builds crema, and the shot runs faster and tastes flat. Buy a bag you will finish in two or three weeks, grind just before you pull, and if a shot suddenly runs fast with the same grind, the coffee is probably the reason. A grinder that adjusts in small steps matters as much as the beans; our list of grinders for espresso covers the ones that can. If your shots taste sour, our guide to under-extracted espresso walks through the fixes.

How we ranked them

The order comes from the same scores as every coffee on this site: how much the roaster publishes about sourcing, freshness and packaging, and the price per kilo against the category. It is not a taste test. Nobody here has pulled these shots, and every tasting note on this page is the roaster's own.