Good morning and welcome to today’s review. I’ve been pulling tons of shots of Moka Sirs Pregiato blend espresso recently and I’d like to tell you all about this morning, so thanks for joining me!
Si, Espresso website (Moka Sirs’ USA distributor)
Purchase this coffee directly from Si Espresso for $25/1kg (2.2 lbs)
MOKA SIRS ESPRESSO PREGIATO BLEND
Regular readers are probably asking, “What the heck is he doing now?” as this is a pretty different type of coffee from the usual small batch specialty coffee KC Coffee Geek is usually focused on, but I’m just as excited to talk about this coffee this morning. This morning’s coffee is Moka Sir’s Pregiato blend, which was sent to me in a giant 2.2lb bag from their USA distributor, Si, Espresso based in New York. Moka Sirs was founded in Pavia, Italy just south of Milano, in 1954 by Giovanni Migliorini. The name came from Giovanni’s belief that the English “sir” was the embodiment of style and elegance. Moka Sirs appears to be a huge company today, producing multiple brands of coffee, private label/contract roasting for other brands, pods, you name it. Why am I so excited to talk about this coffee? It reminds me of Italy, so much and in every way. My family lived in Rome when I was age 12-18 and so for me, coffee, espresso, Italy and Roma are one big smooshed up memory and experience and this blend turned out to be Italy in a cup, for me!
The particular coffee Si, Espresso sent me is Moka Sirs’ Pregiato blend. Pregiato translates as “fine” in English and it’s one of three blends of whole bean (“torrefatto in grani”) coffees Moka Sirs offers in its flagship lineup. On the Moka Sirs website, the Pregiato blend is described as “A blend of Brazilian and Central American Arabicas, with a touch of Robusta from India. It is a well balanced blend characterized by spicy notes and full body.” They say this is a “medium light” roast and “low in caffeine” which is hard for me to understand given that the “touch of Robusta” is actually 30% of the blend! Robusta is a different species of coffee from the Arabica most readers are familiar with. It has a lot more caffeine in it, which is attractive to some blenders, and in espresso machines it puts out TONS of crema, which is probably why it’s found in so many traditional Italian espresso blends. The downside to Robusta coffee is that it is much more bitter than Arabica species coffees and it gives a “burned rubber” sort of flavor note. Robusta grows really nicely and is more resistant to a lot of the diseases and bugs that plague Arabicas. Italian coffees tend to use Robusta as a blend, as in this case, but particularly in SE Asia you’ll see 100% Robusta being consumed. This is high-octane coffee with lots of caffeine and it doesn’t taste great, as you can imagine, so this is where sugar-laden Vietnamese ca phe and other drinks originated from. The good news is, Robusta’s bitterness actually makes it a good foil for sugar-heavy drinks like Cuban cafecito or the various types of Vietnamese coffees that usually use sweetened, condensed milk. Making those drinks with Arabicas usually yields a toothachingly sugar cup while they actually taste better, to me, with a Robusta coffee that can offset some of that sweetness.
Anyway, getting back to the Pregiato blend, it’s as classic of an Italian espresso blend as you can get: Brazil, Central America and 30% Indian Robusta. It comes in 1kg bag, which is 2.2 pounds to us barbarians! My bag had no “roasted on” date that I could find and it’s imported from Italy, so no matter when it was roasted it wouldn’t be in that “10-14 days” off-roast range that most espresso does best in. That being said, this coffee proved to be INSANELY well-behaved, easy to pull, fairly consistent from shot to shot, and did well being frozen and thawed out. I was pretty worried this coffee would be ancient and wouldn’t do well in my espresso machine and it pulled right where I like it wihtout having to adjust my espresso grinder from the third wave, specialty single origin espresso I was pulling right before it. I put about 12 shots’ worth of this coffee into my fancy Craig Lyn Bean Cellars, then froze the rest of it in regular Ziploc bags. I take a bag out the night before I’m going to use it and let it thaw without opening the bag and I saw no discernible problem this way. Once the coffee has been back in the air for about 5 days I did notice my shots running faster and needing to tighten up my grind a little. This is way, WAY better behavior than most single origin espressos, which are tempermental and difficult to deal with on a good day.
I’ve really loved playing with this coffee and for a photographer or videographer, you can’t find a better looking espresso to use. The amount of crema this puts out because of that 30% Robusta addition makes me laugh every time! It looks gorgeous, as you can see in the pictures I’ve posted here, and my Instagram has a bunch of videos I’ve shot with this coffee, too. I’ve pulled 25 shots, at least, of this coffee and I’ve had almost no channeling, spitting, spurting, etc out of my bottomless portafilter. It’s just a very, very easy coffee to work with. Unlike a single origin coffee, I don’t taste a whole lot of difference if I pull a shorter shot or a longer shot, which is another attractive thing about this type of blend… consistency. That’s more important, IMHO, for cafes and restaurants, but it’s nice for me to not have to fiddle with my grinder every shot or wonder how it’s going to turn out, either.
I’ve been using 18g doses of this coffee in an IMS 16/20g precision basket. My shorter shots come in around 22-23g of espresso in the cup in 26 seconds, and my longer ones, after the coffee has been out after about 5 days, come in in the 27-28g range. After about a week I was getting into the low 30’s. The crema is about the same across all of these shots, the look is about the same. The body gets a little thinner in the longer shots, but the flavors are consistent across the whole range. In the shorter pulls, this coffee puts out unthinkably thick crema, even after freezing and thawing, and it looks great in a glass, like Guinness beer, as is gasses off and settles. The crema that is left behind is super thick and pillowy, the consistency of shaving cream.
So, how about that taste?
Looking back on my phone to the first shot I pulled, it was 18g in, 22.6g out in 25 seconds and my note read, “traditional, very Roman. Huge crema. Any Robusta in this? Heavy mouthfeel, a little burned rubber, dark caramel, dark chocolate.” That was when I messaged Si, Espresso and they confirmed it’s a 30% Robusta blend. The flavor of Robusta is pretty unmistakable, even to me and I’ve only tasted in a couple coffees since I started KC Coffee Geek. But, it is very commonly found in Italian coffees used all over the country in cafes and restaurants, so this “burned rubber” note is, to me, an important component of a traditional Italian espresso experience. If adding sugar, condensed milk, cream, or doing drinks like Cuban coffees are your thing, it transforms this coffee into coffe-flavored candy, so this is a good vehicle for anyone with a sweet tooth, too.
This is not a nuanced, fruit-forward third wave style shot. Quite the opposite. For me, this is as traditional as it gets and this is the flavor of espresso you can get in any of thousands of Roman cafes you would walk by on a visit there. The Italian experience of walking into a coffee bar, ordering, giving the receipt to the barista and standing for your quick drink in a packed cafe is second to none, in my experience, but it’s also not the best tasting! LOL But I still love it. This Pregiato blend has tons of body and a thick mouthfeel. There is a lot of dark caramelized sugar and some cocoa notes. The dominant note is that plant-like, almost mint-like burned rubber note from the Robusta. I don’t dislike this, and I expected it and accept it in this coffee. If I bought a bag of single origin Colombian arabica I wouldn’t expect it and that would change the experience for me, but if I’m drinking a traditional Italian blend I want it to taste like the coffee I could get in any Italian coffee bar from Sicilia to Milano, and that’s Pregiato blend. It’s Italy in a cup and I love that.