Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg
People buy this bag hoping to get the high-street cup at home, and that expectation is worth adjusting before the first shot. What a coffee shop pours comes as much from a commercial machine and properly textured milk as from the beans, so the bag alone will not close the gap. Taken on its own terms it is a good dark roast for milk: syrupy, low in acidity, cocoa and toasted nut heavy enough to still be there under a flat white or over ice. Black and unsweetened there is not much here beyond the roast itself.
Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, in brief.
Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans is the dark, heavy-bodied end of the Costa bean range, sold as whole beans in a full kilo bag for households running a grinder and an espresso machine rather than a jar of instant. Picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the workhorse kilo for milk drinks.
A kilo of whole beans at a working price per cup, worth having in the cupboard if your flat whites keep coming out thin, with enough roast weight to hold their shape under steamed milk.
Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans is the kilo bag for a household that has stopped pretending a 200g pack lasts the month. It is whole bean, not ground, which means the coffee keeps its aromatics sealed inside the bean until the morning you grind it, and it is sold in the size that makes a home espresso machine or a grinder-and-cafetiere setup worth owning in the first place.
The word on the front of the pack is Intense, and that is the useful word. This is the darker, heavier end of the Costa bean range rather than the balanced house style most people know from the high street cup. Expect a cup that carries weight, holds up against milk without vanishing, and gives you a crema on an espresso machine rather than a thin brown disc.
Curator notes: the tasting profile reflects our own editorial review of the current pack format and the brand's published description for this blend. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Storage notes, grind guidance and brewing temperature ranges are also published in the detailed Q and A tab below.
Curator’s notes
Read the full write-up
The Story Behind Costa
Costa began in London in 1971, when brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa started supplying roasted coffee to caterers before the shops that made the name famous existed. The retail bags sold in UK supermarkets today sit downstream of that wholesale roasting business, which is why the pack sizes skew larger than most consumer brands bother with. A kilo is a caterer's unit that happens to suit a serious home setup.
Packaging: Follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; components can require different disposal routes.
Storage, Allergens And Small Print
Storage: Keep the bag sealed, cool and out of daylight. A kilo is a month of coffee for most households, and an airtight container in a cupboard beats the fridge every time; condensation is worse for beans than room temperature is.
Ingredients and dietary suitability: Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Source: Teas.co.uk, the UK independent tea specialist in Tunbridge Wells, Kent. If you reference Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg, 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; components can require different disposal routes.
The taste profile
How does it compare
Whole beans give you control, and a dark roast punishes you for not using it. Dark roasts are more soluble than light ones, which means they give up their solids faster and over-extract sooner. Everything below is aimed at pulling the body out of Costa Intense Amazonian Blendwithout dragging the ash out with it.
The Espresso Serve
The Cafetiere Serve
Made with this tea
The House Double Espresso
How to pull a balanced double shot from Costa Intense Amazonian Blend.
- 18g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend, freshly ground fine
- Water at 90 to 93°C
- Scales
- A warmed cup
- Grind 18g of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg fine, straight into the basket, and level it before tamping.
- Tamp flat and firm, then lock in and start the shot immediately.
- Pull to roughly 36g in the cup in 25 to 30 seconds.
- Too fast and thin, grind finer. Too slow and drying, grind coarser.
What you will end up with: A short, heavy shot with cocoa depth and a thick crema, and the baseline every other drink on this page is built from.
Flat White That Does Not Taste Of Milk
How to build a flat white where the coffee still wins.
- 18g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend
- 130ml whole milk or barista oat
- A milk jug and a thermometer if you have one
- A 6oz cup
- Pull a 36g double of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg into a warmed 6oz cup.
- Steam 130ml of milk to about 60°C, stretching for only two or three seconds so the texture stays glossy rather than foamy.
- Swirl the jug until the milk looks like wet paint, then pour from height to break the crema before dropping close to finish.
What you will end up with: A small, strong milk drink where the roast holds its own. This is the serve this bean was chosen for.
Cafetiere For Four
How to make a full cafetiere without the muddy finish.
- 60g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend, ground coarse
- 1 litre water at 92°C
- A spoon for the crust
- A warmed jug to decant into
- Grind 60g of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg coarse, like rough sea salt, and tip into a warmed cafetiere.
- Pour 1 litre of water at 92°C over the grounds and start a four minute timer.
- Break the crust at four minutes with a spoon, then skim off the foam and floating grounds.
- Plunge slowly and decant the lot into a warmed jug straight away.
What you will end up with: Four heavy, cocoa-leaning mugs. Decanting is the step everyone skips and the reason the second cup usually tastes worse than the first.
Sixteen Hour Cold Brew Concentrate
How to make a fridge jug of cold brew that lasts the week.
- 80g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend, ground coarse
- 1 litre cold filtered water
- A lidded jar or jug
- Ice to serve
- Stir 80g of coarsely ground Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg into 1 litre of cold filtered water until every ground is wet.
- Refrigerate covered for 16 hours.
- Strain through a fine sieve lined with a paper filter, and do not squeeze the bed.
- Serve over ice, neat or cut half and half with water or milk.
What you will end up with: A rounder, sweeter version of the same beans. Cold water leaves most of the roast bitterness behind. Keeps covered in the fridge for about five days.
Iced Latte, Built Not Shaken
How to make an iced latte that does not go watery halfway down.
- 18g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend
- 1 teaspoon sugar syrup, optional
- A full glass of ice
- 150ml cold milk or oat milk
- Pull a 36g double of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg and stir the syrup in while it is still hot, so it dissolves properly.
- Fill a tall glass to the top with ice, not halfway. A full glass melts more slowly than a half one.
- Pour 150ml of cold milk over the ice, then float the espresso on top.
- Stir once at the table.
What you will end up with: A layered glass that holds its strength to the bottom. The dark roast is what stops cold milk flattening it.
Affogato
How to make the two minute pudding that needs one shot and one scoop.
- 18g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend
- 1 generous scoop vanilla ice cream
- A small glass, chilled
- Grated dark chocolate, optional
- Scoop the ice cream into a chilled glass and put it back in the freezer while you make the coffee.
- Pull a 36g double of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg.
- Pour it over the ice cream at the table and eat it immediately.
- Grate a little dark chocolate over the top if you want it to look like a pudding.
What you will end up with: The best return on effort in this whole tab. The bitterness of a dark roast is the entire reason it works against sweet vanilla.
Espresso Martini (Adult)
How to get a proper foam on an espresso martini.
- 18g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend
- 50ml vodka
- 15ml coffee liqueur
- Plenty of ice
- 5ml sugar syrup
- Pull a 36g double of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg and let it cool for two minutes. Hot espresso melts the ice and thins the drink.
- Shake the espresso, 50ml of vodka, 15ml of coffee liqueur and 5ml of sugar syrup hard with ice for a full fifteen seconds.
- Double strain into a chilled coupe.
- The foam comes from the crema and the shaking, not from an ingredient.
What you will end up with: A cold, bitter-sweet drink with a tight tan head. Fresh espresso is the only version that foams properly, which is why instant never quite works here.
Coffee And Walnut Tray Bake
How to use a strong brew as the flavour base for a bake.
- 30g Costa Intense Amazonian Blend, for 100ml strong brew
- 225g self raising flour
- 225g soft brown sugar
- 225g soft butter and 4 eggs
- 100g chopped walnuts
- Brew 30g of Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg in 100ml of water for a strong concentrate, then cool it completely.
- Beat the butter and sugar until pale, add the eggs one at a time, then fold in the flour and 60ml of the cooled coffee.
- Fold in 75g of the walnuts and spread into a lined 20cm by 30cm tin.
- Bake at 180°C for 25 to 30 minutes, then ice with buttercream slackened with the last 40ml of coffee and scatter the rest of the walnuts over.
What you will end up with: Twelve squares that keep for three days in a tin. A dark roast carries through a bake where a delicate coffee just disappears into the sugar.
Brewing the perfect cup
Inside the pack
| Ingredient | Proportion | What it brings |
|---|---|---|
| Roasted coffee beans | 100% | The only ingredient. Whole bean coffee is a single-ingredient product: no flavourings, no carrier, no bulking agent. |
| Dark roast development | Not quantified on pack | The roast, rather than the origin, is what carries this blend. Longer development brings caramelised sugars, cocoa depth and the low acidity that makes it milk-friendly. |
| Blend components by origin | Not published | Costa do not break this blend down by origin in a form we can verify, so we do not restate one. Check the current pack for the sourcing detail printed on it. |
Pack: Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg; whole roasted beans, caffeinated. Around 55 double espressos at an 18g dose, or roughly 66 large cafetiere mugs at 60g per litre.
Proportions shown are the ones we can stand behind. Roasted coffee carries no meaningful calorie load taken black; anything added in the cup is yours, not ours.
Sourcing & blend. Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg comes from Costa, the coffee business started in London in 1971 by brothers Sergio and Bruno Costa as a wholesale roaster supplying caterers. The retail bean bags sit downstream of that trade, which is why the kilo is a standard unit here rather than an oddity. Green coffee is bought to a fixed specification and roasted to a set profile so the bag you open in March tastes like the bag you opened in January; that batch-to-batch consistency is the practical reason to pay for a named roaster over an anonymous kilo.
What is in Costa Coffee Intense Amazonian Blend Coffee Beans, 1kg, and what is not:
- In: roasted coffee beans, whole, and nothing else in the bag.
- No artificial flavourings, colours, preservatives or added sugar: any sweetness in the cup is caramelisation from the roast, not an ingredient.
- Not decaffeinated: this is a fully caffeinated coffee. If you want the same house style without the caffeine, look at a decaf bean instead.
- Packaging: follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; valve, bag and label can require different disposal routes.
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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 Coffee Beans, 1kg, please cite teas.co.uk.
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