Introduction

This is a review of the Lavazza Espresso Maestro Ristretto coffee capsule for the Nespresso Original Line (OL) machine. That seems like a long name; the “Espresso Maestro” name is used with 4 other capsules, so this one is the Ristretto. This is a dark roast and has an intensity rating of 12 out of 13, and is made with arabica and robusta beans. The beans are from Central & South America, Africa and Asia with 5.7 grams of coffee per capsule. Lavazza mentions aromas of intense and chocolate, plus caramel. I believe this is intended to be the most intense coffee they have.

These are a brand new design of fully aluminum capsules. The box has a best before date on it in the format dd.mm.yyyy, the best before on the box was marked 29.02.2024. I bought this 5 pack from Amazon, because I wanted to try the new aluminum capsules since I really enjoyed the coffee from the plastic ones. These appear to be manufactured by JDE in Germany.

Aroma

The Lavazza Espresso Maestro Ristretto when brewed as an espresso size has really strong candy or caramel like aromas, and it is really really nice. The coffee has a thin and dark crema.

When brewed as a Ristretto size, there are more noticable spice like notes to the coffee.

Taste

The Lavazza Espresso Maestro Ristretto has very intense, spice and nutmeg like notes to it. Also there is just a touch of acidity, but overall really nice. There is also the sense of sweet tastes, and slight caramel notes, which is interesting, since coffees don’t normally have both sweet and spicy notes. I can understand why this is now popular.

When brewed as a Ristretto size cup, the coffee has a lot stronger spicy notes, and the acidity is more noticable. I would definitely recommend brewing this one as a Ristretto size cup. The coffee is definitely not as good as any Nespresso coffee, but it is a nice intense coffee.

Result

The Lavazza Espresso Maestro Ristretto is a nice intense coffee with nice spicy notes. The only downside of this coffee is that it doesn’t really compare to the quality of Nespresso at all. I was hoping that since these are now aluminum capsules, the coffee overall quality would be way better than the plastic capsules; but that is simply not the case, since I really liked the plastic Lavazza capsules a lot more. The Ristretto is probably the best of the “Espresso Maestro” Lavazza series of coffees.

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