Introduction

This is a review of the Nespresso World Explorations Rio de Janeiro Espresso coffee capsule for the Original Line machine, which was released in the US at the end of April 2022. The Rio de Janeiro Espresso is part of the World Explorations series where the coffee represents the coffee of the particular city, in this case the coffee theme is the city of Rio de Janeiro. The coffee consists of various arabicas from Brazil, and each capsule contain 5.5 grams of coffee and has an intensity of 9. Nespresso mentions aroma notes of sandalwood and herbs. NOTE: I believe this coffee is exactly the same as Cafezinho do Brasil.

Aromas

The Nespresso Rio de Janeiro Espresso has toasted bread like aromas to it. There are also woody/earthy and light herb like notes. Pleasant but light to medium intensity notes.

Taste

The Nespresso Rio de Janeiro Espresso has very strong bitter notes with light herbal notes. The bitterness persists in the mouth after sipping the coffee and is very pleasant (if you like bitterness). The coffee is exactly like the Cafezinho do Brasil.

Result

The Nespresso World Explorations Rio de Janeiro Espresso is an awesome coffee, especially if you liked the Cafezinho do Brasil – now you can get it year round. If you don’t like bitterness to your coffee, then you won’t like this one.

Please read my article Nespresso 2022 World Explorations Espressos for various information about all of the WE Espressos.

Side-by-side Comparison

I also choose to do a side-by-side comparison to the Cafezinho do Brasil, just to verify whether they indeed are similar and the same coffee. In the picture below, the test was with 2 cups and on the left the new Rio de Janeiro and on the right the Cafezinho do Brasil (2021 release); both using the same Origin cups and brewed right after each other.

Crema is almost identical and very nice and consistent. I notice that the Rio de Janeiro Espresso has more toasted bread like aroma notes compared to the Cafezinho, whereas the Cafezinho has more herb like aroma notes to it.

I’m getting strong bitterness in both of them (as described above), and just sipping both of them I would say they are exactly the same coffee. If I had to perform a blind taste test, I would not be able to tell the difference.

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