Ginerva

This coffee is the El Cheapo of the Ginerva range, and it's 100% Robusta. That sounds like a bloody terrible combination and your coffee gagging reflex should be preparing itself for the worst. The beans are small and dark - and there's not much more you can say about them than that. After grinding, you'll be struggling with what looks like a thick, black, tarry mess all over your plunger - and i don't like anything messing up my plunger. It's not even giving off a good smell - no one will be rushing in to the kitchen telling you how good it smells brewing up. So far, so bad. Until... you get this stuff down your gullet and you quickly realise that this one is a dark horse. It's a right little cracker. Yes - you have to like your strong coffees to appeciate it and want to be slapped around by those dinky Robusta beans. But at only a tenner for a 1kg pack this is such good value - just get yourself some, and mainline it. Now. They've rated this at strength four and a half - which is a new one on us. It's a an 8/10 from me - and I've only docked it as it brews up so un appetisingly. Just don't show your guests the mess and you can be a cheapskate coffee hero.

This came delivered from the lovely people at Ginerva, direct from Sicily, freshly roasted. It’s a massive 1kg bag – the size of which we’ve only come across in horrible catering coffees.  Couple that fear with the knowledge that Ginerva’s coffees are based on Robusta coffee beans. Now, for the uninitiated, coffee is of two general types of bean. Arabica = Good or Robusta = Bad. The Robusta stuff is generally just cheap and naff – although Robusta beans are stronger in caffeine. But Ginerva have assured me that theirs are different – that they have tamed the Robusta and have made a gourmet coffee out of it. Opening this packet of whole beans the smell of freshly roasted coffee is intoxicating. Even Justin Beiber loving tea drinkers around me can’t help but comment on how good it smells. And that’s before I’ve even ground the buggers. The beans are just dark and lovely looking. Straight in with a standard six spoon mix for our three cups – slightly nervous that I should be cutting it down a little – scared of that cheap Robusta punch in the throat. But no – this stuff redeems itself on the first swig. It’s a strong coffee for sure – as you would expect from an Italian style roast – but not so strong that your mother would be scared of it. It just tastes how you expect a good coffee to taste – it’s pure coffee with no hint of chocolate, lemon or any other fruit for that matter. In fact, none of those other fancy twangs you read about on the side of all those other poncy coffee packets,  written by marketeers to draw you in. There is some blurb on the side of this packet – but it’s in Italian – how cool is that! This stuff is very forgiving in the making too – I’ve varied the dose up and down a bit and ground it finer or coarser – and every time it’s come up trumps. An idiot could do it. So get a big bag delivered when you next need to stock up and bow down to the working class Robusta bean come good. It’s a 9/10 from this Judge – I’ve only docked it a point as, even in a kilo bag, it’s not the cheapest coffee out there.