For most home bean-to-cup machines, start with whole beans in a balanced espresso style, with chocolate, caramel or nut-led flavours. Choose a coffee for the drinks you actually make: a rounded blend for everyday espresso and americanos, or a fuller-bodied option if you mainly drink lattes and cappuccinos. Check your machine’s instructions before choosing very oily or coated beans.
Which Northside beans should you try first?
Origin Espresso Blend is our straightforward starting point for smooth everyday coffee. It combines coffees from Brazil and Colombia, with chocolate and caramel notes and a creamy body that works well with milk.
Altitude Espresso Blend suits drinkers who want a more pronounced coffee flavour through milk. Its Brazil, Colombia and India blend has hazelnut and cocoa notes. If your morning latte tastes mostly of milk, this is a useful flavour direction to try alongside adjusting the drink’s coffee-to-milk balance.
Choose Altitude Espresso Blend
Both are currently offered in 250g and 1kg sizes. Select Whole Bean for the hopper. Start with 250g while you find your favourite; move to a larger bag once you know the flavour suits you. These are recommendations based on our coffee profiles, rather than a claim that either blend has been tested in every machine.
Medium roast, dark roast or single origin?
A medium-style espresso roast is a practical place to start if you want sweetness and body without a heavily roasted taste. A darker coffee may suit you if you enjoy pronounced roast flavours, but darker does not automatically mean better coffee or a stronger drink.
An espresso blend offers a useful everyday starting point. A single origin can bring a more individual flavour: check the actual tasting notes rather than assuming all coffees from a country taste the same. Fruit-led coffees can be enjoyable as black coffee, although they may need different settings and can taste sharper than you expect.
If you use a portafilter machine and tamp the coffee yourself, our home espresso guide covers that setup separately.
Read our home espresso bean guide
Should you avoid oily or flavoured beans?
Follow your manufacturer’s guidance. De’Longhi’s advice for fully automatic machines says to avoid beans that are too oily, caramelised or coated because they can stick to the grinder. JURA also warns against beans treated with additives such as sugar. These are equipment instructions, not a reason to judge coffee quality from appearance alone.
De’Longhi’s fully automatic machine guidance
Tasting notes such as chocolate, caramel and hazelnut describe the coffee’s flavour; they do not mean you need syrup-coated beans to get that style of cup.
How to improve weak, sour or bitter coffee
Keep the beans and drink selection the same while you adjust one setting at a time. Follow the instructions for your exact model: grind numbers and strength settings are not interchangeable between machines.
Weak or watery: try increasing the coffee strength or dose setting, if available. For a large black coffee, try brewing a shorter coffee and adding separate hot water rather than sending more water through the same dose. For a latte, try less milk or an extra coffee shot before changing beans.
Sour and thin: if the coffee flows quickly, a slightly finer grind may help. Check that the machine is clean and warmed up, and give each adjustment time to take effect. If it still tastes too bright for you, choose a more rounded flavour profile.
Bitter or drying: if you are brewing a very long coffee, try reducing its brewed volume. If flow is unusually slow, the grind may be too fine. A slightly coarser setting may help where your model allows it; also check the cleaning routine before blaming the beans.
De’Longhi advises adjusting its grinder only while it is grinding, one notch at a time, and notes that the result may take a few coffees to show. Other models may differ, so use their own manuals.
De’Longhi’s grinder adjustment instructions
Whole beans, bag size and storage
Put whole beans in the bean hopper. Only use pre-ground coffee if your machine has a separate compartment designed for it, and follow its dosing instructions. Ground coffee should not go into the bean hopper.
Keep the remaining beans sealed in a cool, dry cupboard away from heat and sunlight, and add manageable amounts to the hopper. Freshly roasted coffee does not have to be used immediately: if a new bag is difficult to settle, allow it a little time and adjust to taste rather than chasing a universal number of days.
Choose beans for your next bag
We roast in Morpeth, Northumberland. Try Origin for chocolate-and-caramel everyday coffee, or Altitude for a fuller cocoa-and-hazelnut direction through milk. Choose Whole Bean when ordering for your bean-to-cup machine.
Retail orders currently include free Royal Mail Tracked 48 delivery, with a Tracked 24 upgrade for £3 or click and collect at checkout. These are service names, rather than guaranteed delivery times.