Coffee

I tasted it alongside some arabica beans some years ago and it tasted like burnt rubber.

I also tried Vietnamese coffee at a place in Europe and that was even worse: cannot fathom drinking that liquid without heaps of sugar and/or milk! I hope that’s not how it always tastes… :)

Something something Vietnamese coffee phin.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_filter#Permanent_filters

I was wondering why there was a coffee bag in space for a while there.

The cheaper Lavazza blends that don't mentiom Arabica are also robusta and are pretty good for espresso.

Love robusta. It's so incredible. Of course individual roaster makes a huge difference within varieties.

Robusta has more caffeine than Arabica. It's also not as smooth and can be very bitter, especially the lighter roasts. Most store coffee (cans, bags, bricks) by big names (folgers, maxwellhouse, etc) are Robusta unless the can states 100% Arabica.

Robusta can be a good coffee if you can get a really dark roast (espresso, french, italian) and mix it 50/50 with a dark Arabica roast.

Holy thread ressurection batman but anyway...

On holidays in the south of France, found 100% robusta in the supermarket. What a revelation.

It seems to be less popular down here than it might be (often on special offer in the supermarkets and a bit cheaper than arabica) but I am happy to drink it (we have a few bricks stashed away for taking home as I don't recall seeing it readily available in the UK)

It's a very forgiving brew, great aroma and flavour, just don't expect arabica!

Here in Vietnam, there has been a upsurge of specialty coffee production in the last decade or so. In the last 5 years it seems that it has expanded into specialty robusto also plus liberica and some heirloom varieties.

Some of it is surprisingly tasty.

Also a big robusta fan after visiting Vietnam years ago, though I tend not to drink it often nowadays as I’m very careful about my caffeine intake. Interesting that you take it black - same here but I’ve never met anyone else that does and whenever I asked for it like that in Vietnam I got very strange looks! The best one I had out there was sweetened and frothed with egg white - James Hoffman would keel over backwards but I thought it was great. I get that it doesn’t have the depth of Arabica but as an essentially different drink I’ve never understood the bad rap it gets.

Interesting. I'm going to search for this now, too.

Sidenote, I don't understand the Wright Brothers airplane on the front lol

i recently decided to try robusta for the first time as well, and i like it very much. i’ve been using beans from Café Justo for 22 years but had never considered trying their robusta beans before now.

Arabica is overrated. Do you put lemon in your cocoa? If you do, drink Arabica.