Italian Roast is a dark House espresso blend with beans from Brazil, Guatemala and The Dominican Republic. This blend is based on a "pulped natural" coffee from Brazil.
Pulped Natural is essentially a middle ground between the dry and wet processing methods. During the natural (or dry) method, the beans are dried entirely in their natural form, while the washed (or wet) process sees all of the soft fruit residue, both skin and pulp, removed before the coffee is dried.
The Pulped Natural method was pioneered in Brazil, where it was originally called Cereja Descascada or “peeled cherry”. This is because the process involves removing the skin of the fruit before letting the coffee dry with almost all of the pulp still on the beans.
In general, the difference between each of the techniques is the amount of mucilage (or mesocarp) that is removed after the peel. Remember, with pulped natural only the peel is taken away.
We add washed coffee from Guatemala and the Dominican Republic to give the blend more body and flavor complexity.
Italian roast is a relatively dark roast compared to our "french roast" of the same blend. A dark roasted espresso gives a more bittersweet flavour.
