Nutty coffee

Nutty is the quiet note. Almond, hazelnut, walnut and plain roasted nuts, usually with low acidity and a heavy body, and usually from Brazil. It is what most people mean when they call a coffee smooth, and it is the least fashionable and most drunk flavour in the catalogue.

Brazil is the reason, and it is deliberate

Brazilian coffee is grown at lower altitudes than most specialty origins, which produces a softer, denser, less acidic bean. That gives body and nuttiness rather than brightness, which is exactly what an espresso blend needs as a base and exactly what survives milk. Almost every house espresso in the world is built on it. The coffee belt explains why altitude changes the bean.

It travels with chocolate for a reason

Nutty and chocolate appear together constantly, because both are products of the same medium roast on the same kind of bean. When a bag lists both and nothing else, you are almost certainly looking at a Brazilian-based blend at a medium roast, which is the most common coffee on earth and a perfectly good thing to buy.

This is usually where low-acid buyers end up

People who find coffee harsh on the stomach are generally steered toward dark roasts, and often end up with something bitter instead of something gentle. A nutty medium roast is frequently the better answer: the acids have softened without the roast taking over. It is worth trying before assuming the answer is darker.

Hazelnut coffee is a flavoured product

Almost without exception. Hazelnut is one of the oldest coffee flavourings there is, and a bag headlining it has had flavouring applied to roasted beans. That is a different purchase from a coffee whose roast produced a nutty character, and where a roaster declares it, we record it.

Who it is for

Espresso drinkers, milk drinkers, offices, and anyone who wants a coffee that does not demand attention. It is also forgiving of equipment: it works in a moka pot and an inexpensive drip machine where a delicate floral coffee would be wasted.