Rave Signature Blend review: a medium-dark all-rounder at the going rate

Signature Blend is the coffee Rave started with and still sell most of, and its selling point is that it does not need a particular brewer. Home baristas writing about it since 2013 describe a balanced, low-acidity blend that is easy to live with in milk and happy in a cafetière. The argument is over straight espresso. Some find it smooth and forgiving; others find it too mild to bother with. At 61p a cup by the kilo it sits 2p under the whole bean median, which is fair for a speciality blend and not a bargain.

Live prices, sizes and retailers for this coffee sit on its product page. This review is the analysis alongside it. See prices →

Who Signature Blend suits

Buy it if you want one bag for several brewers, or a sweet, nutty base for milk drinks. Rave's own staff say they brew it on a V60, an auto-drip machine, an AeroPress and an espresso machine, and the Amazon listing sells it as suitable for all brewing equipment. On Coffee Forums UK, owners have used it as an everyday filter and French press coffee and as a flat white, sometimes in the same thread. Where it loses people is as a straight shot for someone who likes espresso dark and heavy. More than one home barista has called it not bold enough, and Rave make a darker blend for them.

What Rave publish

Rave keep the description short. The tasting notes are caramel, almond and chocolate, the blend is 'smooth and balanced', the roast shows as four out of five on Rave's own scale, and the Amazon listing calls it medium/dark. An older Rave description, quoted by a blogger in 2020, put the roast 'past the end of first crack but still shy of second crack', a medium leaning towards dark. What Rave do not publish on the product page is what is in it. There is no origin list, no processing and no split between components, only the word blend.

Missing origins matter less for a house blend than for a single origin, since the point of a blend is a flavour rather than a farm. It does mean you cannot tell how close today's kilo is to the one a forum post described in 2013, and some of the opinions below are that old.

As espresso, and in milk

Coffee Forums UK has discussed this blend on and off since 2013. In an early thread one owner found it 'very stable/repeatable to pull as espresso' and a smooth, chocolate and nutty flat white. Another described 'hints of smokiness but with some lemon acidity to the finish', called it 'fairly easy to extract, reliable', and said it lasts a good while before the quality tails off. The Sartorial Cyclist blog pulled it as a single espresso in 2020 and agreed it was well balanced, if 'a little lighter' than the writer's usual morning coffee. The same post says Rave's website then pitched it as ideally at home in a flat white or a piccolo, which is where most of the praise lands.

The dissent is just as consistent. In a 2020 thread on which Rave blend to buy for espresso, one owner said it 'was not bold enough', another found a hazelnut note that did not hit the mark for someone who likes bold coffee, and a third rated it 'ok as my daily brew'. The same thread has someone preferring it to Italian Job because Italian Job was too bold. That split is the whole story. It is a balanced medium-dark blend, and whether that reads as smooth or as thin depends on what you want from a shot.

If shots run fast, go finer before you give up on it. In a 2015 thread one owner needed a very fine grind to reach a normal 1:2 shot and another 'struggled with those beans too', while a third on the same Sage grinder had no trouble. A beginner's 2021 thread about bitter, sour shots on a Sage Barista Pro drew replies about shot time and technique, not about the beans.

In a bean-to-cup machine

No bean-to-cup owner turns up in the threads above, so this part is inference rather than report. The profile suits the machines. They mostly make milk drinks, which is where Signature gets its warmest write-ups, and a roast that stops short of second crack is less likely to leave oil in the hopper than a very dark one. The complaint that it is too mild as a straight shot matters less in a machine that mostly makes lattes. If your bean-to-cup mostly makes black espresso, Italian Job is the better Rave bag.

How long a kilo stays good

Rave say an opened bag of freshly roasted beans is good for about a month. At two cups a day on our 18g dose, a kilo lasts about 28 days, so it fits a two-cup household. At one cup a day it is eight weeks of coffee, and the second month will have faded.

Rave's own fix is to break a bulk bag into smaller airtight containers as soon as it arrives. They are also fine with freezing it in 250g portions, as long as each one is sealed well and brought back to room temperature before you use it. The Amazon listing says freshly roasted but gives no roast date or dispatch promise, so check the bag when it lands.

What 61p a cup buys

61p a cup is 2p under the 63p median for whole bean coffee on this site, on the same 18g dose. That puts Signature at the going rate for speciality coffee, not below it.

The useful comparison is with other speciality kilos. Pact House Coffee is 53p a cup and Union Revelation 48p, so Signature costs 8p to 13p a cup more than either. What the extra buys is versatility and a long record of home baristas getting on with it. If you already know you only brew one way, that premium is optional.

Within Rave's range the kilo is the only sensible size: the 250g bag works out at 87p a cup. The Italian Job Nº 2 kilo is 2p a cup cheaper, but it is a different coffee, darker and with robusta. If the listing offers Subscribe & Save, that is the one lever left on this bag.

Who should skip it, and what to buy instead

Skip it if you want a dark, heavy espresso; the forum complaints are consistent on that and Rave make a better bag for you. Skip it if cup price decides things, because two of the speciality kilos below cost less. And skip the kilo if you drink one cup a day and have no plan to split and freeze it on arrival.

• Want it bolder? Rave's The Italian Job Nº 2 is roasted 'darker than our usual style' with 'a splash of high quality Robusta', at 59p a cup.
• Want chocolate for less? Pact House Coffee is sold on milk chocolate and toffee, at 53p a cup, and Pact pitch it at filter brewers.
• Want a dark blend built for milk? Union Revelation Espresso, at 48p a cup.