Best Coffee for Espresso (2025 Guide & Reviews)

Best Coffee for Espresso

• Best Overall: Stone Street Knee Buckling Espresso
• Best Value for Money: Lavazza Espresso Whole Bean Coffee
• Best in Freshness: Koffee Kult ThunderBolt
• Best Organic Coffee: Kicking Horse Coffee
• Best Whole Bean Coffee: Starbucks Espresso Dark Roast
• Best in Caffeine Content: Death Wish Coffee Ground
• Best in Flavor: Intelligentsia Black Cat Classic Espresso

Check other models on Amazon

7 of the Best Coffee for Espresso

---

Stone Street Knee Buckling Espresso 

Best Overall: Good tasting strong coffee

Stone Street Knee Buckling is a dark roast ground coffee ready for brewing in any espresso machine, coffee maker, or drip coffee maker. This coffee is ground to a fine powder size, great for making espresso. It makes a balanced espresso shot with a strong and bold taste.

It is 100% arabica. A rich blend of five different arabica coffees makes up this gourmet espresso. It makes for a smooth and straight shot with a creamy and velvety essence. It also makes a wonderful cappuccino or latte.

It delivers a bold, balanced shot with creamy crema and subtle chocolate notes.

It was packaged using three layers of the naturally crafted bag with foil-lining. Its package also includes a one-way valve to keep the coffee fresh. The opening at the top with a seal makes scooping easy and ensures that the coffee stays fresh—an excellent gift for coffee lovers.

If you value a powerful caffeine kick without bitterness, this dark-roast ground coffee—also available whole-bean—could be your go-to.

Pro tip: dial in your grind to the texture of table salt (≈0.8 mm) to avoid over- or under-extraction.

---

Lavazza Espresso Whole Bean Coffee

Best Value for Money: Excellent coffee quality at an affordable price

Lavazza Espresso Whole Bean Coffee has a smooth texture with a full-body, which is created from South America and Africa. Enjoy the taste of floral and fruity.

This coffee brand is made from 100% Arabica beans grown in Central America and the highlands of Africa. These are medium-dark roast whole bean coffee with a balanced taste. It is free of nuts and only contains coffee.

In this blend, you get dark chocolate and vanilla along with a slight licorice note. This is superb-tasting, but its sweetness is not overpowering. You can crunch one straight from the bag, and it is still not too bitter.

Further, there are some nice ones out there at high prices, but for a good, all-arounder, you can’t go wrong with this one.

---

Koffee Kult ThunderBolt

Best in Freshness: packaged right after roasting

ThunderBolt from Hollywood, Florida, has become synonymous with the world’s most desirable coffees. Their whole roast product is a true restaurant-quality product.

These coffee beans feature French roast coffee beans with medium acidity and a crisp, sweet finish. The aroma is every bit as pleasing as the taste of the gourmet coffee. 

This high-quality Colombian coffee whole bean product is delivered to customers free of chemical contaminants and produced with respect for the planet. That’s why with every sip, you’re drinking only real whole bean coffee!

Furthermore, the gourmet coffee beans are placed in the packaging right after roasting. This ensures that the gourmet coffee beans remain delicious and fresh for every cup.

To strengthen the community, this company also provides ethically sourced 100% whole bean coffee, so you can feel good about buying it. 

Also, this company gives back to society. This coffee is ethically sourced and fairly traded. This supports workers in providing better lives for their families.

---

Kicking Horse Coffee

Best Organic Coffee: Grown and processed according to standards of USDA

Kicking Horse Coffee is unlike other coffees. It’s all deep, dark, and tasty, roasting underneath the towering peaks of the Canadian Rocky Mountains.

These are whole beans and dark roast. They are velvety, earthy, and strong, and a champion of taste.

This coffee is a rich, dark chocolate flavor with cacao nibs, brown sugar, and roasted hazelnuts. Recommended for having a cold brew.

These coffees from Indonesia, Central America, and South America were sourced from sustainable farms. They were grown by farmers with stable businesses, a social responsibility, and a commitment to the environment.

Furthermore, it is a shade-grown, Arabica coffee that is hundred percent organic, fairtrade, kosher. It is a good coffee for the planet, the farmers, and the coffee drinkers.

Pro tip: store in a cool, dark cabinet and grind just before pulling your shot to preserve those delicate cacao and brown sugar notes.

---

Starbucks Espresso Dark Roast

Best Whole Bean Coffee: A premium blend of coffee from the countries of the ‘coffee belt’

Starbucks Espresso Dark Roast comprises a deep and dark blend with molasses and caramelized sugar notes. It is a rich and caramelly cup of coffee. Steamed milk is the perfect accompaniment to its intense caramel sweetness.

It is crafted with beans from multiple regions, including Latin America and Asia-Pacific. The unique blend of beans from various regions has a distinguished flavor profile.

Their coffee is made from 100% Arabica coffee beans. Each coffee bean must be balanced with the correct amount of heat and time to achieve its optimal aroma, acidity, body, and flavor—a very fine grind after it’s been put on the grinder.

Moreover, it has sustainable and ethical sources that create a secure long-term supply of high-quality coffee; therefore, they could impact the livelihood of coffee farmers. Starbucks sources beans from over 30 countries within the ‘Coffee Belt.’

Expert tip: for machines prone to channeling, try a slightly coarser grind and a lighter tamp to avoid over-extraction and preserve sweetness.

---

Death Wish Coffee Ground

Best in Caffeine Content: Gives you a great boost

Death Wish Coffee is an original dark roast coffee. It is enriched with a smooth, subtle, never-bitter cherry and chocolate flavor profile. These coffee beans are carefully selected and expertly ground from around the world to bring you a flavor you’ll never forget.

The combination of Arabica and Robusta beans and the slow roasting process naturally created twice as strong as typical coffee. There are no additives or additional caffeine added, making this a 100% organic blend.

In addition, the Death Wish Coffee blend gives you that clarity and focus you get from high caffeine coffee without the acidity or bitter aftertaste. It is a small batch roasted, ensuring quality and consistency are maintained.

Death Wish Coffee is a strong coffee that gives you a boost. This is an excellent hot drink for heavy-duty—also a good starter for your early grind.

Pro tip: use a slightly shorter pull (18–20 seconds) to balance caffeine intensity with flavor clarity.

---

Intelligentsia Black Cat Classic Espresso

Best in Flavor: A creamy with chocolate cherry taste 

This Intelligentsia Coffee blend has the best single-origin coffees’ fruity, sweet flavor. The content of this blend changes seasonally, depending on what’s fresh and tasty from all of their partners across the world.

In addition, to maintain the unique flavor profile of each batch, this caffeine-free coffee is decaffeinated using a chemical-free, mountain water process. They go beyond what you expect from espresso and explore the possibilities of flavor, aroma, and mouthfeel.

Their commitment to direct trade permits them to cut unnecessary imports and exports. They achieved a true partnership with coffee growers, leading to quality coffee beans.

This is the perfect coffee for those who want a coffee with a smooth, silky texture with a delicious chocolate-cherry taste.

Expert tip: preheat your portafilter and cup to maintain thermal stability and preserve delicate aromatics.

What are Espresso Beans?

The espresso bean is coffee roasted more, ground finer, and brewed in a machine or Aeropress.

While they have been on the market for quite some time now, their origins can be traced back to Italy during the early 1900s when coffee machines first started being used and gas-powered stoves became more common in homes throughout the region.

Espresso coffee beans are unique because of their density, size, and flavor, which has made them popular among coffee drinkers for a long time now!

What Makes Espresso Beans Unique?

Espresso coffee beans are unique as they have a very fine and consistent grind that will not produce excess coffee grounds, unlike other coffee types. Espresso coffee machines use hot water at high pressure to extract the flavor instead of long brewing times. Since coffee beans have been roasted more, they also tend to be stronger coffee.

For coffee grounds to extract correctly and provide a full flavor profile, you must use a fine grind. If too coarse of a coffee grind is used, coffee will taste weak and under-extracted or even bitter. This will result in coffee with minimal sediment.

Arabica vs Robusta Coffee

Like coffee beans from other regions, coffee for espresso can also come in two flavors: Arabica and Robusta. These coffee bean varieties have their unique flavor profiles and caffeine content. It makes them suitable for different coffee drinks such as drip or iced beverages.

Arabica is the most common coffee bean used for espresso coffee beans and regular drip coffee. It has a smooth flavor and aroma. It is perfect to be enjoyed on its own or paired with flavors from other ingredients such as chocolate, fruit, nuts, and spices.

Robusta is a coffee bean that tends to have more caffeine content than Arabica coffee beans. They are often used in coffee blends to give the coffee more energy boost or stronger flavor notes.

What to Look for When Buying Coffee for Espresso

Grind Size

Coffee for espresso should be ground to a fine grind size to get the best flavor out of it.

For brewing espresso, use coffee that is finely ground. The coffee grounds should be close to the texture of table salt but not quite as fine. Set the coffee grinder to the finest grind setting when using a grinder.

When it comes to the perfect espresso, you want a fine grind. This ensures that your beverage will have tiny ground particles measuring around 0.8 mm or 1/32nd of an inch wide! Although this number can vary depending on the type and brand(s)of coffee beans used.

If you don’t have an espresso grinder at home, look for coffee pre-ground specifically for espresso machines.

Frequently Asked Questions

Conclusion 

To sum up, the top coffee mentioned above, there is no doubt that Stone Street Knee Buckling Espresso brings all the best coffee. 

As the name indicates, Knee Buckling Espresso gives you a bold and powerful coffee shot with higher caffeine content. The bean is 100 percent Arabica coffee beans, providing more flavor and aroma. 

Aside from its great quality, it is also well packaged to maintain its freshness. A great package to give as a gift to coffee lovers.

But if you prefer a stronger boost, you may wish to consider Death Wish Coffee ground. It is an original dark roast coffee with a rich and smooth taste that hints at cherry and chocolate. It gives you a sense of clarity and focuses your experience with a strong coffee.

You can choose whatever you like and enjoy your delicious espresso!

Have a great coffee experience!