Beans for a bean-to-cup machine, and the ones to keep out

The best coffee beans for most bean-to-cup machines in the UK are Lavazza Qualità Rossa, a medium-roast arabica and robusta kilo at about half the typical whole bean price per cup, or Union Revelation if your machine mostly makes lattes and cappuccinos. If you drink your coffee black, Segafredo Single Origin Brasil is the gentler all-arabica choice, and like Qualità Rossa it is a medium roast of the kind the machine makers' warnings about oily beans are written around.

Which coffee beans suit a bean-to-cup machine?

Medium to medium-dark roasts with a dry, matt surface, and a blend if most of what you make has milk in it. The reason is the grinder built into the machine. De'Longhi tells owners of its automatic machines to 'avoid any coffee beans that are too oily, caramelised or coated'. Jura's Impressa J6 manual says beans with an oily surface 'tend to stick together' and that 'sometimes dark beans deposit more oils into the brewing chamber'. Oil and roast go together: Wikipedia's article on coffee roasting notes that 'an oily coating is more prevalent with darker roasts'.

Kev at Coffee Blog, whose guide was last updated in October 2023, recommends medium/dark espresso blends or single origins for these machines, and explains why in one line: 'the oils tend to coat the burrs, and you can't usually remove the burrs on bean to cup coffee machines, to clean them.'

Lavazza Qualità Rossa: best value

Lavazza Qualità Rossa is a blend of arabica and robusta from Africa, South America and South East Asia, roasted to medium, rated 5 out of 10 on Lavazza's own intensity scale and described as chocolate and dried fruit. Lavazza recommends it for espresso and moka. The robusta matters in a machine that makes mostly milk drinks: good robusta is used in Italian espresso blends 'to provide a full-bodied taste and a better foam head (known as crema)', as Wikipedia's entry on the species puts it.

It cost around 32p a cup when we last checked, about half the 63p median for the whole bean coffee we track. Lavazza does not publish the split between arabica and robusta.

Skip it if you want a coffee that tastes of one place, or if robusta's extra bitterness is the thing you are trying to get away from.

How it behaves under pressure and in a cafetière, and why opinion on it splits by brewer, is in the full review. Lavazza Qualità Rossa review

Union Revelation: best for milk drinks

Union Revelation Espresso was designed for milk. Union's founders first made it in 1994, as TM Espresso, and say the brief was a coffee that 'should have sweetness, it should be smooth on the palate but still bold enough to come through that milk'. Union lists a dark roast of arabica from Costa Rica, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Rwanda and Burundi, scores it 84.5 on the Speciality Coffee Association scale, and says it is 'best brewed as an espresso (coffee shop type machine or a bean to cup)'.

The 100 Espressos blog pulled it on a Sage Bambino Plus with a Smart Grinder Pro in October 2022 and described 'rich, heavy dark chocolate and treacle with very noticeable cinnamon', calling it 'a desirable companion for cappuccinos and flat whites'. The same post found one grinder step was the difference between a good shot and 'a sour mess', so give a bean-to-cup a few drinks on each setting before you judge it.

It is the only dark roast here. Union says Revelation 'has gotten lighter in roast over the years', but if your beans look shiny, keep only a day's worth in the hopper. At around 48p a cup when we last checked, it costs about 15p a cup less than the median. Skip it if you like light, bright coffee: the people who dislike Revelation say it is too dark.

The forum history, the freshness window and the 500g alternative are in the full review. Union Revelation review

Segafredo Single Origin Brasil: best for black coffee

Segafredo Single Origin Brasil is 100% arabica from Brazil, natural processed and medium roasted by Segafredo Zanetti Poland, which lists automatic machines among the brewers it suits. Segafredo describes dried fruit, chocolate and nuts, and rates it 3 out of 5 for intensity on its own scale. That profile is low in acidity, which is what you want from an americano or a long black poured straight from the machine.

That score is also why it comes third for milk: in a 300ml latte it will read as gentle. There is no independent English-language review of it, so the flavour words here are Segafredo's. It cost around 31p a cup when we last checked, the cheapest of the three.

What Segafredo publishes about the beans, and who the barista on the bag is, are in the full review. Segafredo Single Origin Brasil review

How do the three compare on roast and price?

All three cost less per cup than the 63p median across 812 whole bean coffees in our catalogue, priced on an 18g dose. The gap between the cheapest and the dearest is 17p a cup, which at two drinks a day comes to about £124 a year.

Over a year at two drinks a day, which is 730 doses, that is about £234 for Qualità Rossa, £226 for Segafredo Brasil and £350 for Revelation, against £460 at the median price. The cards at the top carry today's prices.

Are oily or dark-roast beans bad for a bean-to-cup machine?

Oily beans are the problem, and dark roasts are simply more likely to be oily. No manufacturer manual quoted here bans a dark roast outright. What they warn about is the surface of the bean and anything added to it:

• De'Longhi: avoid beans that are 'too oily, caramelised or coated'.
• Jura, Impressa J6 manual: oily beans stick together and can stop feeding into the grinder; for 'extremely dark roasted, oily beans' it recommends a coarser grind setting, and it warns that coffee oils can build up inside the bean container.
• Jura, E8 manual: beans 'treated with additives (e.g. sugar), ground coffee or freeze-dried coffee will damage the grinder'. Only roasted, untreated beans go in the hopper.

So look before you pour, because the word on the bag is not enough. Kev at Coffee Blog warns that supermarket beans sold as medium are often dark brown and shiny, and that shiny means oily. Tip a handful onto a white plate: matt beans are fine, beans that glisten or leave a film on your fingers are the kind the manuals mean. Flavoured beans are out for the same reason as sugar-glazed ones. If a bag you love turns out oily, Jura's own suggestion is to spread the beans on a plate first and let 'some of the sticky oils evaporate'.

Black Donkey Intenso is a dark roast where the species works in its favour: green robusta holds around 10% lipids against some 15% for arabica, according to a published review of coffee lipid research. Black Donkey Intenso review

Do you need an espresso blend for milk drinks?

Not strictly, but a blend built for milk is the safer buy if most of your drinks are lattes and cappuccinos. Kev at Coffee Blog says espresso blends suit milk drinks, and that single origins suit people after an unusual flavour and may need a traditional espresso machine to show it. Revelation was designed for large milky drinks, and Qualità Rossa has robusta for body. Segafredo Brasil, at 3 out of 5 for body on Segafredo's scale, is the one that milk will soften most.

How do you keep a kilo of beans fresh?

Keep a day or two of beans in the hopper and the rest sealed, and freeze half the bag if a kilo will take you more than a month. Union says coffee is at its best until around four weeks from roasting. A kilo is about 55 doses at 18g, so it lasts 28 days at two drinks a day and eight weeks at one.

• Store the open bag in an airtight container in a cool, dry cupboard, and never the fridge. Union says roasted coffee absorbs moisture and picks up the smells around it.
• Split a big bag on the day it arrives. Rave Coffee's advice is to divide bulk bags into smaller airtight containers straight away.
• Freeze what you will not reach in four weeks. Rave says frozen beans keep for 9 to 12 months, with some loss of complexity.
• Thaw before the hopper. Union says you can grind from frozen; Rave says to let frozen beans come to room temperature over 2 to 3 hours to avoid condensation. Beans sit next to the grinder in a bean-to-cup, so Rave's way is the one to follow.

Who should skip all three?

• Anyone who wants light, fruity single origins. None of these is that kind of coffee, and Kev's advice is that such coffees show best on a traditional espresso machine.
• Anyone cutting caffeine. All three are caffeinated; the decaf shortlist covers the decaffeination methods and what decaf costs.
• Anyone who wants the most caffeine per cup. Qualità Rossa is the only one with robusta in it, and the strong coffee shortlist explains which beans actually carry more.

The verdict

Buy Lavazza Qualità Rossa if you want one cheap, dependable kilo for a machine that makes a bit of everything. Buy Union Revelation if nearly every drink is a latte, cappuccino or flat white, and check the beans are matt when they arrive. Buy Segafredo Single Origin Brasil if you mostly drink black coffee from the machine and want it smooth rather than strong.