Ground coffee · 5 min readLavazza Qualità Rossa ground coffee review
The default Italian red brick, at 25p a cup. Lavazza recommend it for the moka pot, the filter machine and the cafetière, which almost no pre-ground coffee can honestly claim.
Most pre-ground coffee is cut for one brewer and merely tolerated in the others. Qualità Rossa is the exception that makes it worth buying: Lavazza name the moka pot, filter coffee and the plunger on their own product page, and they print cafetière dosing instructions to go with it. That flexibility, at 25p a cup, is why this brick has been the safe answer in the ground aisle for decades. It is a medium roast at intensity 5 out of 10, mostly Brazilian arabica lifted by African robusta, and it tastes of chocolate because Lavazza built it to.
The most versatile grind in the ground aisle at 25p a cup: Lavazza recommend it for moka, filter and cafetière alike.
- Tastes
- Chocolatey, rounded, dried fruit behind it
- Strength
- Medium
- Best for
- Moka pot and everyday filter
- Valuecup price vs the format median
- 5/5
- Easy to likefrom the roast profile
- 5/5
- Good for beginnersblend, roast and pack size
- 4/5
Buy it ifYou brew more than one way and want a single bag that copes with all of them.
Skip it ifYou want a pure arabica cup, because Lavazza blend African robusta into this one.
Live prices, sizes and retailers for this coffee sit on its product page. This review is the analysis alongside it. See prices →
The blend, and what Lavazza publish
Qualità Rossa is an arabica and robusta blend that Lavazza describe as composed mainly of Brazilian arabica with African robustas, drawing on Africa, South America and South East Asia. They rate it 5 out of 10 on their own intensity scale, put it at a medium roast, and give the aroma as hints of chocolate over a rich, full-bodied cup. Their marketing calls it a golden cream coffee, which is a claim about the crema a moka pot or espresso machine will raise off it.
None of that is exotic and none of it is meant to be. This is the blend Lavazza built to be everybody's ordinary coffee, and it has been in that job long enough to be the reference point other Italian bricks are judged against.
| Specification | What Lavazza publish |
|---|---|
| Bean mix | Arabica and robusta, mainly Brazilian arabica |
| Robusta origin | Africa, with South East Asian coffee in the blend |
| Roast | Medium (3 of 5) |
| Intensity | 5 out of 10, Lavazza's own scale |
| Published notes | Chocolate, with dried fruit |
| Recommended for | Moka pot, filter coffee, plunger |
| Pack | 1kg, usually four 250g bricks, about 55 cups |
| Cost | £0.25 per 18g cup |
One grind, three brewers
This is the reason to buy it. Lavazza cut Qualità Rossa at a medium-fine grind that sits closest to moka, and then, unusually, stand behind it for filter and plunger brewing as well. They publish cafetière instructions on their own site: two rounded dessertspoons for a three-cup pot, hot rather than boiling water, three minutes, then plunge slowly. A roaster willing to print that is telling you the grind will survive four minutes of immersion.
Compare that with an espresso-cut pack, which has a single correct destination and turns bitter and silty everywhere else. Versatility in a pre-ground coffee is rare enough to be the headline feature, and here it costs 25p a cup.
| Brewer | How it goes |
|---|---|
| Moka pot | The sweet spot. This grind was cut with moka in mind. |
| Filter machine | Good. Lavazza name it, and the drip rate is sensible. |
| Cafetière | Workable. Lavazza publish a recipe; expect a little fine sediment. |
| Aeropress | Fine, and short contact times keep it clean. |
| Espresso machine | Possible but unrewarding. It will run fast and thin. |
A medium-fine grind in a cafetière is a compromise, not a mistake. You get a fuller, heavier cup than a proper coarse grind gives, and a layer of fines at the bottom of the mug. Plunge slowly, decant straight away, and leave the last centimetre.
Where it does not belong
An espresso machine, despite what the Italian branding suggests. Qualità Rossa is Lavazza's lightest mainstream blend and their moka-leaning grind, and a pump machine will pull it fast and thin with little crema to show for it. Lavazza make darker bricks for that job, and their own recommendation for this one pointedly does not include an espresso machine.
It is also the wrong bag if you want to taste a place. There are three continents in this blend and no farm, region or lot anywhere in the description. That is not a criticism of a coffee designed to be consistent across millions of packs a year, but it does mean the cup is a house style rather than an origin.
The price against the rest of the shelf
At 25p a cup this sits far below the roughly 40p a cup our ground catalogue clusters around, and it does so while being the most flexible grind on this page. That combination is unusual: normally the versatile products carry a premium for the convenience. Over a year at two cups a day it works out at about £183, against roughly £292 for a coffee on the median.
One thing to watch is how the kilo is assembled. Qualità Rossa ground is a 250g brick product, so a kilo is generally four of them, and the vacuum bricks are the reason it keeps as well as it does. If you are ever offered a kilo in a single bag, that is a different proposition for the same weight.
What buyers consistently report
- Moka pot users are the most enthusiastic group by a distance, which follows directly from where the grind sits.
- The recurring descriptor is strong and flavourful rather than harsh, consistent with a mid-intensity blend.
- Very few complaints about the grind being wrong for a given brewer, which is not something you can say about most pre-ground coffee.
- The usual grumble is familiarity: people who have drunk it for years want more from it, which is a reasonable thing to want and not a fault in the coffee.
Who should skip it
Anyone who wants a pure arabica cup should look elsewhere, because Lavazza blend African robusta into this one and are open about it. Anyone chasing traceability should too: this is a commodity blend and there is no farm to follow. And if you pull espresso as your only brewing method, buy something cut and roasted for espresso instead, whether that is Kimbo at the Neapolitan end or the by Amazon pack at 23p.
For the household with a moka pot on the hob, a filter machine in the corner and a cafetière at the back of the cupboard, this is the correct default. It is the answer that stops the argument.
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