Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g
Same blend as the ground bag, left whole, and that single difference is worth more than any other change you can make at home. A bean holds its aroma for weeks; the moment it is ground the clock starts running in days. Two hundred grams is about a fortnight of daily espresso for one person, which is about as long as an open bag stays interesting, so the small size is doing a job. In the cup it is roasted cocoa and toasted nut, syrupy, almost without acidity, closing dry and bittersweet. It is built for espresso and milk drinks. If you own a grinder, this is the version to own.
Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, in brief.
Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g is the small bag of Costa's darkest retail blend: whole roasted beans, unground, in the size that a one or two cup a day household can finish while the coffee is still fresh. Picked into the Teas.co.uk selection as the bean bag to buy before you commit to a kilo.
Grinder needed: these are whole beans. A burr grinder rather than a blade grinder is what separates this blend tasting like the shop version from tasting like a mistake.
Dark, low in acidity and full in the body, which is why it reads clearly through steamed milk where a lighter roast tends to vanish. About eleven double espressos from the bag at an 18g dose.
That last point is the reason this size exists. Whole beans keep their character far longer than ground coffee, but they do not keep it forever once the bag is opened, and a kilo bag in a two-cup-a-day household is a bag that spends its last fortnight going quietly flat. Two hundred grams is roughly a fortnight of daily espresso for one person. If you grind to order and drink it inside that window, a small bag of beans will out-taste a large bag of the same coffee every time.
Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Grinding, storage and cafetiere ratios are covered in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Costa
Costa is a British high-street coffee chain that also sells its retail blends through supermarkets, and the retail beans are the part of the business most people never think about. The shop side gives the brand a reason to keep a blend consistent: a chain that pulls the same drink in hundreds of branches needs a roast profile it can reproduce, and that discipline carries over into the bags on a supermarket shelf. What you are buying is a blend built to be forgiving on a machine that is not a commercial one.
About the name: Intense Amazonian is a blend name, not an origin statement. It tells you where the coffee sits on Costa's own scale of intensity; it is not a claim that the beans come from a single country or region. If you want the origin detail, the composition breakdown and any certification marks, they are printed on the current UK pack, and that is the only place we will point you for them.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; the bag, any inner liner and any valve can each require a different disposal route.
Why Whole Beans And Not Ground
Coffee starts losing aroma the moment it is ground, because grinding multiplies the surface area exposed to air by an enormous factor. A whole bean has a protective shell of its own. Ground coffee in a sealed bag is fine until you open it; after that you are on a clock measured in days rather than weeks. Beans give you weeks.
The trade is that you need a grinder, and the grinder matters more than most people expect. A blade grinder chops the beans into a mixture of dust and boulders, and the dust over-extracts while the boulders under-extract, which is why blade-ground espresso often tastes both bitter and weak at once. A burr grinder produces an even particle size. If you are buying beans for espresso specifically, a burr grinder is the difference between this blend tasting like the shop version and tasting like a mistake.
Getting A Consistent Cup
- Grind to order: grind only what you are about to brew. This single habit does more for the cup than any other change.
- Store it properly: keep the beans in the bag, rolled down and clipped, somewhere cool and dark. Not the fridge; condensation is worse for beans than a warm cupboard.
- Do not freeze a bag you are working through: repeated freezing and thawing puts moisture into the beans every cycle.
- Weigh the dose: a scoop varies by grind size and by how firmly you fill it. Scales cost very little and remove one whole variable.
- Milk: the roast is deep enough to read clearly through steamed milk, which is the main reason to choose this blend over a lighter one.
- Iced: pull the espresso short and strong straight over ice, then top with cold water or milk. Brewing long onto ice dilutes it twice.
- Caffeine note: this is a regular caffeinated coffee, not a decaf. Check the current pack if you need a figure per cup.
- Best with: a bacon sandwich, buttered toast, dark chocolate, or on its own after a meal.
Ingredients And Suitability
What is in it:roasted coffee beans, and nothing else. No added flavourings, no sweeteners, no preservatives.
Ingredients and dietary suitability: Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations, certification marks and allergen advice can change.
Caffeine:contains caffeine. Not one for late in the evening if you are sensitive, and worth moderating during pregnancy in line with current NHS guidance.
Child Safety:Keep hot drinks and the machine out of reach of children.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g, please cite teas.co.uk.
The story behind Costa
Costa is the British coffee chain that grew from a Lambeth coffee bar to the UK's biggest cafe brand. Their retail range includes ground coffee, instant, and pods designed to deliver the cafe drink experience at home.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; the bag, any inner liner and any valve can each require a different disposal route.
The taste profile
How does it compare
To get the best out of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, grind to order and pay attention to three things: dose, water temperature and the time the water spends in contact with the coffee.
The Espresso
The Cafetiere
Made with this tea
The Straight Double Espresso
How to make The Straight Double Espresso with Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans.
- 18g Costa Intense Amazonian beans
- A burr grinder set fine
- Fresh filtered water at about 94°C
- Kitchen scales
- Weigh 18g of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g and grind them straight into the basket.
- Level and tamp firmly and evenly, then lock in and start the shot immediately.
- Pull for 25 to 30 seconds, stopping when the stream turns pale rather than when the cup hits a number.
- If it ran under 20 seconds, go finer. If it took over 35, go coarser. Change one thing at a time.
What you'll end up with: A dense, low-acid double with a cocoa-bitter finish that clears. Drink the first one black so you can read the blend before you start building drinks with it.
The Flat White That Tastes Of Coffee
How to make The Flat White That Tastes Of Coffee with Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans.
- 1 double espresso from 18g of beans
- 150ml whole milk
- A 180ml cup, warmed
- Pull a double espresso of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g into a warmed cup.
- Steam 150ml of milk to about 60°C, keeping the texture tight and glossy rather than foamy.
- Pour from low and close so the milk folds into the crema instead of sitting on top of it.
- Hotter milk than 65°C starts tasting cooked and will bury the roast character you paid for.
What you'll end up with: A milk drink that still reads as coffee, which is exactly what a lighter roast fails to do at this milk ratio.
The Cafetiere Pot
How to make The Cafetiere Pot with Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans.
- 15g beans, ground coarse
- 250ml water at about 94°C
- A cafetiere
- A timer
- Grind 15g of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g coarse, like coarse sea salt.
- Pour 250ml of water just off the boil over the grounds and start the timer.
- Steep four minutes, break the crust with a spoon, then press down slowly.
- Decant the whole pot immediately. Coffee left on the grounds keeps extracting and turns harsh.
What you'll end up with: Two full-bodied mugs with a heavier mouthfeel than a filter gives, and the low acidity of this blend means it takes the longer contact time without turning sharp.
The Iced Latte Done Properly
How to make The Iced Latte Done Properly with Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans.
- 1 double espresso from 18g of beans
- A tall glass packed with ice
- 150ml cold milk
- Fill the glass with ice first, right to the top.
- Pull a double espresso of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g short and strong, straight over the ice.
- Top with 150ml of cold milk and stir once.
- Do not brew long onto ice. That dilutes the cup twice and leaves it watery.
What you'll end up with: A cold drink that keeps its coffee character as the ice melts, because the roast was deep enough to survive the dilution.
The Espresso Martini
How to make The Espresso Martini with Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans.
- 1 double espresso, cooled
- 50ml vodka
- 20ml coffee liqueur
- 1 teaspoon sugar syrup
- Plenty of ice
- Pull a double espresso of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g and let it cool for two minutes.
- Shake hard with the vodka, coffee liqueur, sugar syrup and a full scoop of ice for fifteen seconds.
- Strain into a chilled coupe and let the foam settle.
- A short shake gives you a flat drink; the foam comes from shaking long enough.
What you'll end up with: A dense, cocoa-weighted martini. The low acidity of this blend keeps the drink round rather than sharp once the sugar goes in.
Brewing the perfect cup
Inside the pack
| Component | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Roasted coffee beans | 100% | The only thing in the bag. No added flavouring, no sweetener, no preservative, no filler. |
| Roast level | the intense end of Costa's own retail range | Low acidity, full body, and enough roast development to stay readable in a milk drink rather than disappearing into it. |
| Pack weight | 200g of whole beans | About eleven doubles at an 18g dose, or roughly a fortnight of daily espresso for one person, which is the window in which opened beans still taste like themselves. |
Pack: Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g; caffeinated whole beans, unground. Go by the best before date printed on the pack.
Sourcing & blend. Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g is put together by Costa, a British coffee chain whose retail bags are roasted to the same style discipline as the drinks in its shops. A chain that pulls the same drink across hundreds of branches needs a blend it can reproduce batch after batch, and that is the quality this bag inherits: not rarity, but repeatability. The beans are sold whole and unground so the protective structure of the bean is still doing its job on the day you open the bag.
What's in Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g, and what isn't:
- In: roasted coffee beans, whole, in a 200g bag. Nothing else.
- No artificial flavourings, colours, preservatives or added sugar: any sweetness in the cup is roast sweetness from the bean.
- Not decaffeinated: this is a regular caffeinated coffee. Check the current pack if you need a figure per cup.
- Not pre-ground: you will need a grinder, and a burr grinder rather than a blade one if you are pulling espresso.
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Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Beans, 200g, please cite teas.co.uk.
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