Paris Insights - The Blog

Recently I entered the Starbucks café located at 118, rue Monge in the 5th arrondissement. My intent was to taste their “espresso of the day,” purchase a 250g bag of the roasted beans, take them home, and then prepare my own espressos with my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine.

Starbucks was serving an espresso made from their light roast, “Espresso Blonde,” but after tasting it I did not find its flavor to be compelling. I then tried a pour-over coffee made from their medium roast, “Pike Place.” I was satisfied with its flavor, so I purchased a 250g bag, took it home, and prepared a few espressos with my 9Barista.

I was not very satisfied with the result: the coffee prepared as an espresso tasted bitter. But when I prepared “Pike Place” as a pour-over coffee, using Melitta paper filters, I was happy with the flavor.

Determined to find a coffee at Starbucks for which I could use my 9Barista, I returned to purchase a 250g bag of the dark roast, Caffè Verona. (It was not being offered as an espresso, so I could not sample it. I made my decision to buy it by reading the tasting note on the side of the bag that promised a “toasty sweet & dark cocoa” flavor.)

Information on the Starbucks’ Website indicates that Caffè Verona is a blend of Latin American and Indonesian beans that have been roasted to a dark brown sheen by a process that they call Italian roast. Information on the bag indicates that the beans are roasted in Amsterdam.

The bag I purchased displayed a production date of August 11, 2025. I bought it on October 6.

Taking the roasted beans home, I proceeded to prepare them as an espresso using my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine (pictured above). For the first few days, I was able to produce an espresso that indeed had a satisfying dark cocoa flavor. After I had consumed about 2/3 of the beans, however, I realized that the flavor had changed over time: from dark cocoa to bitter cocoa to simply bitter.

I’m sure that the change in the flavor profile came about because once a bag of coffee is opened, the beans are exposed to oxygen. This exposure changes their flavor.

I think that the solution to prolonging flavor might be to store the beans in a hermetically-sealed vacuum canister right after opening the bag. There are various options about this on the Internet, which I will explore.

Starbucks
118, rue Monge
Paris 75005

L’Odeur de la Brûlerie is located on rue Violet in the 15th arrondissement, not too far from Nœud, the café that I reviewed on September 21st.

Whereas Nœud is a café that sells coffee brewed from beans that it does not roast, L’Odeur de la Brûlerie is a roaster that does not sell brewed coffee. Hence, when I entered, there was no coffee to sample before making a purchase.

However, the roasted beans are presented in little jars, giving customers the opportunity to experience the aromas by sniffing the beans before buying.

Thomas, the owner of the brûlerie, asked me what coffee aromas I preferred. I told him that I liked chocolate, and he directed me to a roast called Sauvage Chocolaté. It is made from Arabica beans from Harrar in Ethiopia.

I purchased a 250g bag of Sauvage Chocolaté, took it home, and began brewing espressos with my 9Barista stove-top espresso machine (pictured above).

As I weighed the beans for grinding, I noticed that some of them were a lighter brown than others.

At first, the coffee had an intense dark-chocolate flavor, which I enjoyed.

But after a few days, the flavor turned bitter, and then sour.

I believe that the flavor change occurred because the beans became rancid, although I kept the bag sealed and refrigerated. (I purchased the bag two weeks after the beans had been roasted and opened it two weeks after my purchase.)

L’Odeur de la Brûlerie sells coffee-making equipment as well as roasted coffee beans. It also holds coffee-tasting and espresso-making/latte art classes.

L’Odeur de la Brûlerie
23, rue Violet
75015 Paris