# Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend Coffee, 36 Pods

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**Price:** £12.80 GBP

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**Canonical URL:** https://teas.co.uk/product/starbucks-by-nespresso-medium-roast-house-blend-coffee-36-pods/
**Source:** teas.co.uk, UK tea specialist, Tunbridge Wells, Kent

**Brand:** Starbucks
**Price:** £12.80 GBP
**Servings:** 36 cups
**Price per cup:** 35.56p
**Caffeine:** Caffeinated
**Brew temperature:** 92-96C
**Brew time:** 4 min
**GTIN:** 7613287364180
**Stock:** instock

## Summary

Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend is the middle of the Starbucks capsule range and the one most households should start with: nutty and cocoa-led rather than smoky, less assertive than Espresso Roast and less bright than Blonde. This is the box of 36 rather than a sleeve of ten. Picked into the Teas.co.uk curator selection as the agreement capsule, for a single machine serving people who want different things from it.Ingredients and dietary suitability: roasted ground coffee only. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.Packaging: follow the current UK pack and local-authority guidance; capsules and cartons take different disposal routes.Curator notes: the tasting profile is our own editorial assessment against the current pack format and the brand's published description, and the serving volumes are our recommended starting points rather than pack instructions. These are Nespresso Original capsules and will not fit Vertuo, Dolce Gusto or Tassimo machines. We run same-day UK dispatch on every order placed before 2pm Monday to Friday. Common questions are answered in the detailed Q and A tab below.

## Description

Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend is the middle of the Starbucks capsule range and the one most households should probably start with. House Blend is the medium roast: nutty and cocoa-led rather than smoky, less assertive than Espresso Roast and less bright than Blonde. This is the box of 36 rather than a sleeve of ten, which is what makes it sensible to keep as the everyday capsule rather than an occasional one. The argument for it is agreement. In a household where one person drinks black espresso and another drinks a large milky coffee, the dark roast is too severe for one and the light roast disappears for the other. A medium roast is the one that satisfies both without anybody feeling they compromised, which matters more than it sounds when a single machine serves the whole kitchen. The Taste Profile
 Roast Depth: ●●●○○ (3/5) Medium. Developed enough to give the cup weight, stopped before the smoke and burnt sugar of the dark roast. Body: ●●●○○ (3/5) Medium and even, with a decent crema but none of the syrupy heaviness of an intensity-10 capsule. Bitterness: ●●○○○ (2/5) Low to moderate. This is the cup you can drink three of without your palate objecting. Sweetness: ●●●○○ (3/5) Nuts and cocoa, quiet rather than showy. It is the blend’s defining character and the reason it takes milk without needing to shout.

Teas.co.uk Curator Rating: 4.7 / 5 - Our expert verdict from the curators at Teas.co.uk. The Story Behind House Blend
Starbucks is a Seattle coffee company, and House Blend is the one in its range that is not making an argument. Where Espresso Roast is built to be recognisable through milk and Blonde is built to show acidity, House Blend is built to be poured all day without anyone noticing it. That is a harder brief than it sounds and it is why it sells. Roast level, origin composition, the capsule material and any certification marks are printed on the current carton and can change between production runs. Read the box in front of you rather than a figure quoted online, ours included. Which Machine This Fits, And Which It Does Not
These are capsules for the Nespresso Original system: the small conical capsules that a lever or a button clamps and pierces. They will not work in a Nespresso Vertuo machine, which uses a larger capsule with a barcode rim, and they will not work in a Dolce Gusto or a Tassimo, which use different pods and a different brewing principle. Starbucks sells coffee for all of those systems under similar names and similar packaging, so check the machine rather than the brand. This is the mistake that costs people money. Within the Original system the dose is fixed at whatever the manufacturer sealed in, and you cannot adjust it, the grind, or the temperature. Your one control is the volume of water you run through the capsule. On a medium roast that control is more forgiving than on a dark one, which is another quiet advantage of this blend: it is harder to make it taste bad. Pack weight: the weight is printed on the current carton. Packaging: capsules and their cartons follow different disposal routes, and some capsules are covered by brand-run collection schemes rather than kerbside recycling. Follow the current UK pack and your local authority guidance. How Does Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend, 36 Pods Compare To:
 Starbucks Espresso Roast by Nespresso, Box of 36: the dark one, and the shot underneath the shop menu. Espresso Roast is smokier, heavier and better through a large latte; House Blend is the one you can drink black at four in the afternoon. Starbucks Blonde Espresso Roast by Nespresso, 36: the light one. Blonde is brighter, sweeter and more acidic, and it is not a weaker coffee whatever the pale box suggests. House Blend sits between the two and is the safer household choice. L'Or Espresso Supremo Intensity 10, 40 Pods: a bigger box and a much darker cup. If House Blend reads too polite to you, that is the direction to move in.
 Ideal Extraction Conditions
No grinder, no dose, no temperature dial. The button you press is the whole of your technique, and a medium roast gives you more room to get it wrong. The Espresso Serve
 Espresso button: about 40ml. The reference serve, and the one to judge the rest against. Ristretto button: about 25ml. Denser and sweeter, and the right base for a milk drink. Warm the cup: run a blank shot of hot water into the cup and tip it away. A cold ceramic cup costs you several degrees. Do not re-pierce: one capsule, one shot. A second pull through a used capsule gives you hot brown water.
 The Lungo, Milk And Iced Serve
 Lungo: the one capsule in this range that takes a long pull reasonably well, because there is less harsh tail to drag out of a medium roast. It still reads thinner than a 40ml espresso topped with hot water, which remains the better route. Flat white: one 25ml ristretto into 130ml of steamed milk. The cocoa note sits nicely against milk without fighting it. Large latte: use two capsules for 250ml of milk. One will disappear, and a medium roast disappears faster than a dark one. Iced: two ristrettos straight onto a full glass of ice, sweetened while hot if you want sugar, then topped with cold milk. Start concentrated, because ice dilutes.
 Machine Care And Storage
 Descale on schedule: a scaled machine runs cooler and slower, and the first symptom is a flat, thin shot whichever capsule you use. Empty the capsule bin: a full bin is the usual cause of a capsule failing to drop and jamming the lever. Storage: keep the carton cool and dark. Capsules are sealed individually, so an opened box is not exposed the way an opened bag of coffee is. Why a 36 box: this is the everyday capsule rather than the interesting one, so buying it in quantity is the point. Keep a sleeve of something darker beside it for people who want it.
 Safety, Allergens And Caffeine
Ingredients and dietary suitability: roasted ground coffee and nothing else. Check the current UK pack before purchase; formulations and allergen advice can change.
Allergen note: plain roasted coffee contains no cereals, dairy, nuts or soya as ingredients. The nutty note described above is a roast character, not an ingredient.
Caffeine: this is a caffeinated coffee. A medium roast is not automatically lower in caffeine than a dark one. If you are sensitive to caffeine, or pregnant, follow NHS guidance on daily intake.
Traditional use: the all-day house coffee, drunk black or with milk, morning through afternoon.
Child safety: keep capsules out of reach of children.

## Product Questions

Which machines do these fit?Nespresso Original machines only: the small conical capsules a lever or button clamps and pierces. They will not fit a Nespresso Vertuo, which takes a larger capsule with a barcode rim, and they will not fit a Dolce Gusto or a Tassimo. Starbucks sells coffee for all of those systems under similar names and similar packaging, so check the machine rather than the brand.What does House Blend actually taste like?Nutty and cocoa-led, quiet rather than showy. It is a medium roast, so it has weight without the smoke and burnt sugar of the dark Espresso Roast and without the acidity of the light Blonde. It is the cup you can drink three of in a day without your palate objecting.Why is this the one to start with?Agreement. In a household where one person drinks black espresso and another drinks a large milky coffee, the dark roast is too severe for the first and the light roast vanishes for the second. A medium roast satisfies both, which matters when one machine serves the whole kitchen.Espresso button or ristretto button?Start with the espresso at about 40ml, which is the reference serve. Drop to the ristretto at about 25ml when you are building a milk drink: shorter is denser and sweeter, because the harsher compounds come out late in an extraction.Can I use the lungo button on this one?More successfully than on a dark capsule, yes. A medium roast has less harsh tail for a long pull to drag into the cup. It still reads thinner than a 40ml espresso topped with hot water, so that remains the better route if you want a mug rather than a cup.How many capsules for a big latte?Two, for 250ml of milk. One will disappear, and a medium roast disappears faster than a dark one because there is less bitterness holding it up. For a 130ml flat white, one 25ml ristretto is plenty.How does it compare with Espresso Roast and Blonde?It sits between them. Espresso Roast is dark, smoky and built to carry through a large latte. Blonde is light, bright and more acidic, and not a weaker coffee whatever the pale box suggests. House Blend is the medium, and the one nobody in the house will complain about.How do I make an iced coffee with it?Pull two ristrettos straight onto a full glass of ice, sweeten while the coffee is still hot if you want sugar, then top with cold milk. Never pull a long shot for an iced coffee: ice dilutes, so you have to start concentrated.My shots have gone flat and thin. Is it the capsules?Usually the machine. A scaled machine runs cooler and slower, and the first symptom is a shot that tastes flat whichever capsule you use. Descale on the schedule in your machine's manual. A full capsule bin is the other common fault, and it shows up as a capsule failing to drop and jamming the lever.Do capsules go stale once the box is opened?Not in the way an opened bag of coffee does. Each capsule is sealed individually, so opening the carton exposes nothing. Keep the box cool and dark and go by the best before date printed on it. That is what makes a 36-capsule box of an everyday coffee a sensible purchase.Can I recycle the capsules?Capsules and their cartons follow different routes, and some capsules are covered by brand-run collection schemes rather than kerbside recycling.

## Ingredients & Nutrition

IngredientProportionWhat it bringsRoasted ground coffee100%The whole of the product, ground and dosed for a sealed capsule and taken to a medium roast: enough development for weight and a nutty, cocoa-led character, stopped before the smoke of a dark roast.Coffee per capsuleSee current packIt is printed on the current carton.Origin composition and roast levelPrinted on the packStated on the current carton and liable to change between production runs. Read the box rather than a figure quoted online.Additives, flavourings, sugarNoneNothing is added to roasted coffee. The nut and cocoa notes are roast development, not flavouring.Pack: Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend Coffee, 36 Pods; 36 capsules for Nespresso Original machines, caffeinated. Best before date printed on the carton; each capsule is sealed individually, so an opened box is not exposed the way an opened bag of coffee is.Net weight, origin composition, roast level, capsule material and any certification marks are printed on the current pack. That includes the net weight and per-cup caffeine.Sourcing & roast. Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend Coffee, 36 Pods carries the name of a Seattle coffee company whose range runs from a very light Blonde to a very dark Espresso Roast. House Blend is the one in the middle, and the one not making an argument: where Espresso Roast is built to be recognisable through milk and Blonde is built to show acidity, House Blend is built to be poured all day without anyone noticing it. That is a harder brief than it sounds, and it is why it sells. Sold here in capsule form for Nespresso Original machines, where the sealed capsule does for freshness what a vacuum brick does for ground coffee, only more thoroughly.What's in Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend Coffee, 36 Pods, and what isn't:In: roasted ground coffee, and nothing else in the capsule.No artificial colours, preservatives, flavourings or added sugar: any sweetness is developed during roasting.No dairy, cereals, egg, soya or nuts as ingredients: the nutty note is a roast character. Black coffee brewed without milk or sugar carries effectively no calories.Caffeine: caffeinated. A medium roast is not automatically lower in caffeine than a dark one, and the volume you pull changes what reaches the cup, so no figure is published here.

## Flavour Science

The flavour of Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend Coffee, 36 Pods is built in three layers, and reading them in order explains exactly why the shot tastes the way it does from the moment the capsule is pierced to the last swallow.The outer layer is aromatic: toasted nuts and cocoa, warm and quiet, without either the smoke of a dark roast or the citrus lift of a light one. These volatile compounds form late in the roast and would normally begin escaping the moment coffee is ground, which is the whole reason a sealed capsule exists. Capsule number thirty-six should smell the same as capsule number one, and on an everyday coffee that consistency is most of what you are buying. A medium roast also has a narrower aromatic range than either extreme, which is not a criticism: the blend is designed to be unremarkable in the specific sense that nothing in it demands your attention.The flavour spike arrives in the middle of the shot and is where the roast decision shows most plainly. A medium roast leaves some of the sugars and acids intact rather than converting them wholesale into heavy bittersweet compounds, so the middle reads nutty and softly cocoa-led rather than smoky. Under the pressure a capsule machine generates this comes out as an even, medium-bodied shot with a decent crema and no dominant note. It is the reason the same box can serve somebody who drinks a black espresso at seven and somebody who drinks a large latte at eleven, and neither of them feels short-changed.The base structure is the finish: medium length, clean and gently sweet, clearing the palate rather than coating it. There is less bitterness here to hold the cup up than in a dark roast, and that is the one real trade-off: under a large quantity of milk, House Blend fades faster than Espresso Roast does. The practical consequence is simple arithmetic rather than a fault. A 130ml flat white takes one capsule; a 250ml latte takes two.Getting it right in the cup. You have no grinder, no dose and no temperature control, so the button you press is the whole of your technique. Start on the espresso setting at about 40ml, which is the reference serve, and drop to the ristretto at about 25ml when you are building a milk drink, because shorter is denser and sweeter. A medium roast is markedly more forgiving of a long pull than a dark one: there is less harsh tail for the lungo button to drag into the cup, so this is the capsule in the range that takes a lungo reasonably well. Even so, a 40ml espresso topped with hot water still reads better than a 110ml lungo, and it costs you nothing to try both. Warm the cup first with a blank shot of hot water, because a cold ceramic cup costs several degrees.How water and temperature change it. On a capsule machine you do not set the temperature, but you do decide what state the machine is in, and that comes to the same thing. A scaled boiler runs cooler and slower, and the first symptom is a shot that tastes flat and thin no matter which capsule you use, so descaling on schedule is the closest thing a capsule owner has to dialling in a grinder. Water hardness matters twice over: it builds the scale in the first place, and it flattens the gentle sweetness this blend depends on, pushing the cup chalky. Very soft water sharpens what little bitter edge there is. Filtered water is worth it for the taste and for the machine. None of this is a fault in the coffee, it is the same capsule responding to the machine you put it in, and once the machine is in good order the result repeats every morning without further thought.

## Recipe Ideas

Starbucks by Nespresso Medium Roast House Blend Coffee, 36 Pods is the everyday capsule, so the builds below are the drinks a household actually makes on a weekday. Six of them: the reference espresso, the ristretto, a flat white, a long black, an iced latte and a cortado for the afternoon.
Brewing methods and serving ideas, born here first
 The Reference Espresso How to pull the reference shot of Starbucks House Blend. 1 min 1 espresso Easy You'll need 1 Starbucks House Blend capsule A Nespresso Original machine Filtered water in the tank A small warmed cup Method Warm the cup with a blank shot of hot water and tip it away. Drop the capsule in, close the lever and press the espresso button for about 40ml. Drink it within a minute, before the crema settles. One capsule, one shot. A second pull through a used capsule gives you hot brown water. What you'll end up with: Judge every other serve against this one. 
 The Ristretto, For Milk Drinks How to pull a ristretto of Starbucks House Blend. 1 min 1 ristretto Easy You'll need 1 Starbucks House Blend capsule A Nespresso Original machine A small warmed cup Method Press the ristretto button, or stop the espresso button manually at about 25ml. Shorter is denser and sweeter, because the harsher compounds come out late in an extraction. On a medium roast the gain is smaller than on a dark one, but it still helps under milk. What you'll end up with: A concentrated base that will not vanish the moment milk goes in. Use this for every milk drink below. 
 Flat White How to make a flat white with Starbucks House Blend. 4 min 1 cup Medium You'll need 1 Starbucks House Blend capsule 130ml whole or oat milk A milk frother or a jug and whisk A 160ml cup Method Pull a 25ml ristretto into the warmed cup. Heat 130ml of milk to about 60°C and foam it lightly, not stiffly. Pour to combine, holding a thin layer of foam back for the top. At this volume one capsule is plenty. At 250ml, use two. What you'll end up with: The cocoa note sitting neatly against the milk without fighting it. The everyday drink this box is for. 
 Long Black, And Why Not Lungo How to make a long black with Starbucks House Blend. 2 min 1 mug Easy You'll need 1 Starbucks House Blend capsule 100ml hot water A warmed 200ml mug Method Pull a 40ml espresso into the mug. Add 100ml of hot water on top. The lungo button works better on this capsule than on a dark one, but this route still reads fuller. Try both. What you'll end up with: A mug of coffee that holds its shape to the bottom. A medium roast lengthens more gracefully than a dark one. 
 Iced Latte, Strength First How to make an iced latte with Starbucks House Blend. 3 min 1 tall glass Easy You'll need 2 Starbucks House Blend capsules A tall glass filled with ice 100ml cold milk Syrup or sugar to taste Method Pull two 25ml ristrettos straight onto the ice. Sweeten now if you want to; sugar will not dissolve in a cold glass. Top with 100ml of cold milk and stir once. Two capsules, not one. A medium roast fades under ice and milk faster than a dark one. What you'll end up with: A clean, nutty iced latte that still tastes of coffee at the bottom of the glass. 
 Afternoon Cortado How to make a cortado with Starbucks House Blend. 3 min 1 small glass Easy You'll need 1 Starbucks House Blend capsule 40ml whole milk A 90ml glass Method Pull a 40ml espresso into the small glass. Heat 40ml of milk to about 60°C with almost no foam. Pour it straight through the middle of the crema. Equal parts, no foam. That is the whole recipe. What you'll end up with: The best afternoon use of a medium roast. Enough milk to round it off, not enough to bury it.

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