Taylors Italian Coffee Beans: Roast Style and the 1kg Bag

Taylors Italian Coffee Beans: A Continental Roast by the Kilo

The word Italian on this bag describes how far the beans were roasted, not where they grew. It is Taylors' continental roast, sold as whole beans by the kilo for kitchens and offices that get through coffee steadily.

Published 26 Sep 2026 Curator-written, not crowdsourced

Taylors Italian Coffee Beans: A Continental Roast by the Kilo, in summary: Italian names a roast style, not a country: dark, low in acidity, heavy with cocoa and toasted sugar, and built for milk. The 1kg bag of whole beans suits a busy home or small office with a grinder.

Last reviewed by the teas.co.uk team in September 2026.

The word Italian on this bag describes how far the beans were roasted, not where they grew. It is Taylors' continental roast, sold as whole beans by the kilo for kitchens and offices that get through coffee steadily.

A roast style, not an origin

Continental, or Italian, roasting simply goes further than a breakfast roast. Roasting on breaks down the sharp acids and builds heavier bittersweet flavours in their place, so the cup trades brightness for weight. Darkness is a flavour decision, not a quality grade: a loss if you wanted fruit, a gain if you want something that still tastes of coffee under milk. Taylors, a Harrogate family firm with long form in both tea and coffee, has made that trade deliberately here.

In the cup that means heavy and coating, with cocoa and burnt sugar in the bitterness rather than ash, and acidity kept low by design. It also makes the roast forgiving in a cafetiere, where there is no delicate top end to spoil in four minutes of steeping, and it is why the style fits the British milk habit so well. One myth worth dropping: darker does not automatically mean more caffeine.

Keeping a kilo fresh

Buy the same roast in 200g bags and a busy house is back at the shop by midweek. The kilo fixes that, and its only weakness is freshness if the whole lot is left open. Leave most of the beans sealed in the bag somewhere cool and dark, and tip out about a week's supply into an airtight jar, or straight into the machine's hopper. What spoils beans is a hopper filled to the brim and left warming on the machine, not the size of the bag.

A kilo makes about 125 cups, or 55 double espressos. Oil rises to the surface of a dark-roasted bean, so beans cling in the hopper and grinder burrs clog sooner; cleaning the grinder every few weeks keeps the cup tasting fresh rather than stale.

Grinder, machine or cafetiere

These are whole beans, so they need grinding first, either in your own grinder or inside a bean-to-cup machine; whole, they are no use in a cafetiere or filter machine. The roast is at home as espresso and in milky drinks, where its weight and low acidity carry through, which makes the kilo a natural fit for a bean-to-cup machine in a home or small office.

In a cafetiere, the commonest cause of bitterness is water at a full boil. Take the kettle off, wait thirty seconds so it lands near 93 degrees, use 60g per litre, brew for four minutes, then press slowly and decant straight away, because coffee left sitting on its grounds keeps extracting.

The packs we stock

Taylors of Harrogate Italian Coffee Beans, 1kg (barcode 615357123625)

What to eat with it

McVitie's Digestives Seriously Chocolatey Biscuits, 250g: rich chocolate that meets the cocoa depth of a dark continental roast.
Thomas Fudge's 6 Dark Chocolate Florentines: dark chocolate florentines for an after-dinner espresso.
Border Butterscotch Crunch Organic Biscuits, 135g: butterscotch picks up the toasted-sugar note and softens the bitterness.
Royal Dansk Danish Butter Cookies, 340g: plain butter cookies for the office tin, leaving the coffee to do the talking.

Elsewhere in the Taylors of Harrogate range

The full range is on the Taylors of Harrogate coffee page.

FAQ

Is Italian roast coffee from Italy? No. Italian names the roast style, taken darker than a breakfast roast; where the beans come from is printed on the current bag.

How many cups are in a 1kg bag of Taylors Italian? About 125 cups, or 55 double espressos.

Will a kilo of beans go stale before I finish it? Not if most of it stays sealed, cool and dark. Decant a week at a time and do not leave a full hopper warming on the machine.

Can I use these beans in a cafetiere? Yes, once ground. Whole beans will not brew in a cafetiere or filter machine, so grind first or choose a ground Taylors coffee.

Is a dark roast higher in caffeine? Not automatically. Darkness mostly changes the flavour; the effect on caffeine is far smaller.

Curator's note: Buy the kilo for an office machine and give the grinder a clean every few weeks. It is a coffee that repays a little housekeeping. Lee, teas.co.uk, Tunbridge Wells.

In short: Taylors Italian Coffee Beans: A Continental Roast by the Kilo

Field	Detail
Brand	Taylors of Harrogate
Packs we stock	1kg
Category	Coffee Beans
Caffeine	caffeinated
Roast style	Dark continental
Best for	Bean-to-cup machines and milky coffee
Keep it	Bulk sealed, a week at a time in the hopper