Illy beans

[Lozzo]

A newbie on the site - be gentle.
I work in a store that sells Illy beans.
Just wondering what the general consensus is on Illy beans, and is it worth the extra for my hard earned or should i start buying from the brwon section here??
I normally use Medaglia di Oro beans from the supermarket mainly due to my proximity to a good shop with beans.
cheers
Jordan

[mwatt]

Re: Illy beans

should i start buying from the brwon section here??

Yes

Problem with coffee you buy in a supermarket (or Illy, cuz its imported) is that you have no guarantee thats its fresh. However, you can be 100% sure that stuff Andy sells is fresh! (Or any of the other site sponsors for that matter - Ill happily vouch for cuppacoffee).

Enjoy exploring!

[Wushoes]

Re: Illy beans

Illy are great beans. They use some of the excellent greens in their blends. Probably a lot better than a lot of the commercial roasters here in Melbourne.

Once you crack open that nitrogen flushed tin, you better start using them. What the nitrogen does is it helps stop the mitigation of the coffee oils from the centre of the bean outwards. This is where all the flavour is. CO2 is the transport mechanism in coffee for flavour and aroma. The nitrogen helps keep the CO2 in the coffee for much longer.

[AndyL]

Re: Illy beans

David is being really nice about it. They do use great green beans, but they are old and still stale. The last time we did test on Illys was pretty terrible. The smell was horrid. The nitrogen did hold the coffee for a while, but it died really fast. Within a few minutes the extraction of the coffee changed. The bread in france is really good, but I would always buy from a local baker. Compare the coffee roasted here with illys and try the test yourself.

[Lozzo]

Re: Illy beans

Thanks guys
much appreciated

[andrewT]

Re: Illy beans

and any serious roasters that also make a pre ground pod product yet still claim to make the worlds best coffee is laughable

[luca]

Re: Illy beans

I think that we need to be fair to Illy. They undertake massive amounts of work and, unlike Nestle, they actually share some of it with the coffee community at large. They were paying responsible prices for green and running programs to support farmers in producing a better crop that could command higher prices long before it became trendy. If you havent already, its well and truly worthwhile listening to the podcast of the lecture that the late great Dr Illy gave to the New York Academy of Sciences last year: click.

All of that said, I agree that Illy coffee is pretty disappointing in Australia. Its probably still worth buying a can, just to try it out. Id try it as a french press type coffee as well. The can is pretty nifty, if nothing else!

Cheers,

Luca

[GGG]

Re: Illy beans

Hello everyone,
I was just wondering why Illy costs so much here in Perth/Australia? I have relatives in Trieste and been there a number of times and have always noticed that it is in the same price range as all the other coffees on the supermarket/other coffee retailers shelves!!!