Thanks for your question, which I’m sure is not only genuine, but also insightful.

Firstly, let me admit that I jumped the gun on posting this review before I had filled out all of the fields from the review forms. The information that I added didn’t change anything, but it does give a bit more of a full picture.

The short answer to your question is that the milk really did do that good a job of suppressing those flavours! Part of it is also that this coffee was a little washed out in milk and, so, all of the flavour that it contributed to the cappuccino was reduced – both good and bad.

Personally, I often find that crema in cappuccinos made from espresso that isn’t that great is a bit of a give-away and that would have been the place in the cappuccino at which the metallic taste was the most prominent.

Speaking from experience rather than experiment, I can say that I have enjoyed a lot of milk drinks from coffee that I don’t particularly enjoy as espresso. Conversely, I have had great espresso that was pretty unexciting in milk – usually because it is washed out. For this reason, we have started to see baristas in competitions use two coffees – one for milk and one for espresso.

Making a blend that is a great all-rounder for both is pretty difficult and roasters that can do it deserve to be celebrated. I would like this web page to do just that. An interesting problem is how to deal with reviews like this, where the reviewers feel that the coffee should be recommended for cappuccino, but not for espresso (and vice-versa). I’d be interested to see what people thought about that particular point. (And, indeed, any other point on how coffees are reviewed on this site.)

Cheers,

Luca