Introduction

The Nespresso Festive Black Espresso is a Festive Seasonal coffee that was released in Fall 2023. The Festive Black Espresso is a medium intensity coffee with an intesity of 7 and uses 5.4 grams of fully washed arabica beans from Honduras & Uganda. Nespresso states that the Festive Black Espresso has notes that are spicy and woody with hints of fruit.

This coffee particularly peaked my interests because it uses arabicas from Honduras & Uganda, and I really like the Nespresso Honduras coffee and Amaha awe Uganda coffee.

Aroma

The Festive Black Espresso definitely has strong woody notes with no other distinguishable aroma notes, so it’s rather bland. There is not a lot of crema and it’s thin and light to medium color.

Taste

The Nespresso Festive Black Espresso has earthy like tastes to it. There is not really any kind of strong character to the coffee at all, so it’s somewhat disappointing. I’m getting very light bitterness, with slight spice tastes. There is also a touch of cherry like notes.

On a third day I tried brewing the Festive Black Espresso as a ristretto sized shot. This is just to check if I can get a better result using a smaller shot. It tastes more intense this way, but still has earth like notes and a touch of sour/acidic notes to it. So this capsule is probably better brewed as an espresso size.

Result

The Festive Black Espresso is just a medium to intense coffee, with not a lot of character to it, and really a disappointing coffee. I can tell the coffee beans used are of high quality, it’s just that they don’t make a good combination.

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