Mark MorphewMoka Pots can be finicky things, and as you probably know, it can take quite a bit of trial and error to produce a great-tasting cup of coffee. But even when all the brewing parameters align perfectly, you’re often still sat drinking a bitter-tasting coffee. What gives!
Moka Pot coffee is known for brewing a rich, concentrated coffee that’s similar to espresso. But being able to brew a rich golden elixir isn’t easy, and one of the biggest reasons why many people struggle is due to using the wrong type of coffee in their Moka Pot.
Although the Moka Pot is very versatile and can use a wide range of different coffees, it’s the dark espresso style of roasts that will produce some of the best-tasting Moka coffee.
There are many tasty choices out there, but we’ve narrowed down our selection to what we think are some of the best coffee for Moka Pot brewing.
So if you want to revitalize your love for this convenient stovetop coffee maker and also reduce your chances of a bitter-tasting brew, you should stick around; this coffee tastes fantastic!
Best Moka Pot Coffee: Chosen By Bean Ground
The Moka Pot doesn’t play well with some types of coffee, so you could be setting yourself up to fail by simply using the wrong kind. But rest assured, any of the below coffees work exceptionally well in the Moka Pot.
As long as you follow the correct brew guide and don’t leave your Moka Pot to over-brew and possibly burn, you will be rewarded with some great-tasting coffee that’s on par with rich and full-bodied espresso.
Volcanica – Sulawesi Kalossi
Our first recommendation is this bag of single-origin Sulawesi Kalossi Arabica coffee.
Sulawesi Kalossi is an Arabica coffee bean grown uniquely on small estates on the remote Indonesian island of Sulawesi. The coffee plants found on the exclusive island are over 200 years old and were originally brought to the island by the Dutch.
The trees yield only a tiny amount of coffee each year, making this premium coffee highly sought after by coffee enthusiasts around the globe.
Volcanica Coffee roasts its coffee in small batches to ensure every coffee bean gets the attention it deserves. The freshly roasted coffee is then shipped directly to your front door.
Using Sulawesi Kalossi coffee in a Moka Pot is an incredible experience. Each sip delivers prominent flavors of chocolate, fruits, and nuts with a slightly earthy finish. The texture of the brewed coffee was thick and creamy with an impressive crema. Give this coffee a try!
Lifeboost – Espresso Coffee
If you’re looking for premium coffee for the Moka Pot, look no further than the range offered by Lifeboost coffee.
Lifeboost coffee is well known by coffee lovers for growing, processing, and roasting high-quality 100% arabica coffee. Nestled high in the mountains of Nicaragua, each batch of coffee is grown on a small estate and handpicked and processed using natural spring water.
Once processed, the coffee is hand-roasted in small manageable batches, then bagged and shipped immediately.
Their coffee has been rigidly monitored and tested at each stage to ensure that no Mycotoxins or heavy metals find their way into the coffee beans.
This coffee screams “premium,” and it doesn’t disappoint in the flavor department too. The Espresso Roast is Lifeboost’s darkest coffee, and although it’s dark, there are no charred or overpowering burnt flavor notes.
In fact, when used in a Moka Pot, you’ll get a rich, bold brew that’s loaded with caramel and chocolate notes with very subtle fruitiness.
The bold flavors and natural sweetness make this particular whole-bean coffee an excellent option for Moka Pot coffee, and when paired with milk, you’re in for a treat.
Lavazza Qualita Rossa
Don’t have a coffee grinder and prefer to buy a coffee that’s already pre-ground? Although we don’t recommend pre-ground coffee, it does brew a reasonably decent cup when used in a Moka Pot if you choose the right blend.
The Lavazza Qualita Rossa is a coffee blend tailored towards Moka Pot coffee brewing and contains a 70% mix of Brazilian Arabica and 30% African Robusta coffees.
Lavazza coffee is carefully blended and roasted in Italy, where the Moka Pot reigns supreme – Italian coffee for an Italian Moka Pot – win-win!
Lavazza Qualita Rossa is a great-tasting coffee for use in Moka Pots (especially the bialetti moka express). It produces an espresso-like coffee that’s well-rounded and rich in flavor with noticeable hints of chocolate. Yum!
Koa Coffee – 100% Authentic Kona Coffee
On the hunt for premium coffee beans for your Moka Pot or even as a gift for a coffee lover this holiday season?
Kona coffee is widely known as some of the best coffee you can buy. The problem is that much of the Kona coffee isn’t the real deal and is often a blend that contains just a tiny amount of the real thing.
That’s not the case with Koa Coffee. They specialize in top-quality Hawaiian coffee, such as Kona, as well as other notable premium varieties.
Their Kona Estate Dark Roast is one of the best coffee for using in Moka Pots. Sure it is more expensive than your regular store-bought pre-ground coffee, and there might be better choices for your daily brew.
But for special occasions or when you want to enjoy a slow coffee with your feet up, Koa should be at the top of your list.
Koa coffee is grown and sourced from a single family-owned estate high on the mountains of the Mauna Loa volcano. This is where the real Kona coffee thrives and can be officially called “Kona.” Coffee grown elsewhere isn’t the real deal!
The soil in the location is rich in volcanic minerals, and the unique climate in this high-altitude region helps infuse that much-loved Kona flavor.
This dark roast coffee comes packed with flavor, and you can expect to taste toasted nuts, sweet chocolate, and hints of tropical fruits. Heavenly!
Coffee Bros. Espresso Roast
Another great-tasting coffee for Moka Pots is this espresso roast offered by Coffee Bros.
This medium-level roast is a blend of Colombian and Ethiopian Arabica beans that have been small batch roasted to perfection.
Each batch of coffee beans is roasted by hand to ensure an even and consistent roast profile each and every time. Once roasted, each batch is packed immediately and sent directly to Amazon in weekly shipments, so the freshest coffee is always ready to be delivered to counters ordering online.
The Coffee Bros. espresso roast is as pronounced and sweet as you’d expect from a classic espresso roast but also boasts a rich flavor profile of vanilla, strawberry, and sugarcane, which is out of this world.
Portland Coffee Roasters Goose Hollow Blend
Our final recommendation is the Goose Hollow blend. This strange-sounding coffee was actually named after a Portland neighborhood.
Like the neighborhood it’s named after, the Goose Hollow coffee blend is celebrated for being inviting and comforting, making it a great option when you want to dust off your Moka Pot and enjoy a slow, leisurely morning or lazy afternoon.
The blend consists of coffees sourced from Cerrado, Brazil, and Oaxaca, Mexico, which pair beautifully together to produce a rich, full-bodied brew.
When brewing the Goose Hollow Blend coffee in your Moka Pot, you can expect complex flavor notes of dark chocolate and caramel with a rich crema.
Which Coffee Works Well In A Moka Pot
Moka Pots have a reputation for brewing coffee that’s often overly bitter. But in fairness, it’s not really the fault of the Moka Pot but rather the user not preparing the Moka correctly or simply not choosing the right type of coffee.
A simple switch from a light roast coffee to a darker roast will noticeably elevate your Moka coffee brewing game. If you’re struggling to make the switch, you might be surprised by the results.
The Moka Pot is often referred to as a stovetop espresso maker because it brews coffee that is very similar to a shot of espresso.
It’s not a textbook espresso by any stretch of the imagination. Still, even with the limited pressure (about 1.5 bars) and with the right type of coffee, you can produce something that is passable.
The Moka Pot works exceptionally well when the brewed coffee is used as a base for a latte or cappuccino. The milk helps to mask any bitterness that might be lingering in the Moka Pot coffee and helps to highlight the nuttiness and chocolate notes hidden inside the beans.
The Roast
Because the Moka Pot brews espresso style of coffee, it only makes sense to choose a roast that works well in espresso machines.
Dark to medium roast will be some of the best coffee for Moka Pots. Dark roast coffee comes loaded with rich, toasty flavors of nuts and chocolate combined with a heavy body and creamy mouthfeel.
All of these flavors and textures are highlighted and easily identified when used in a Moka Pot.
Whole Bean or Pre-Ground
Here at Bean Ground, we always recommend using whole-bean coffee for any coffee brewing, and the Moka Pot is no different – whole-bean is always the best choice for the freshest-tasting coffee possible.
Just make sure to weigh and grind your coffee beans to a fine to medium grind right before you need it, using a good quality burr grinder.
Although grinding your coffee is going to give you the best coffee-drinking experience, we understand that some of you prefer the convenience of using pre-ground coffee – and that’s perfectly ok.
Honesty, the Moka Pot works reasonably well with pre-ground coffee, and even better if you can find coffee marketed explicitly for use in Moka Pots.
Just make sure to buy small-sized bags and only open them when needed and seal the bag inside a good airtight coffee canister.
The Moka Coffee Grind
If you’re grinding whole-bean coffee for the Moka Pot, the key to optimum extraction is dialing in the right grind.
Grind your coffee too coarse, and you’ll end up with a very weak, overly acidic, and watery cup of coffee. If your grind is too fine, your final brew will likely taste burnt and bitter.
When it comes to the Moka Pot, a grind anywhere between a medium and medium-fine grind works exceptionally well; slightly coarser than you would typically use in an espresso machine but finer than that used in an automatic drip coffee maker.
Conclusion
If you’ve stuck around to the end, I’m sure you already have your eye on a bag of coffee to use in your Moka Pot from our list of recommendations.
But what’s our verdict? Which do we think are the best coffee beans for a Moka Pot? That’s easy.
We couldn’t get enough of the Volcanica Coffees Indonesian Sulawesi Kalossi; it was the best-tasting coffee we tried in the Moka Pot. It comes loaded with rich chocolate and fruit flavors, a creamy body, and a heavy mouthfeel.
But coffee is subjective. What we like you might not enjoy, so we added a range of different types of coffees with various roast profiles and blends that all work exceptionally well in a Moka Pot. So we are confident that there is one on the list that will tickle ya taste buds.
?️ Related: AeroPress vs. Moka Pot
?️ Related: Moka Pot vs. The Espresso Machine
FAQs
? How Do You Know When A Moka Pot Is Done?
The trick to the best-tasting Moka Pot coffee is timing. When your Moka Pot is almost finished, you will begin to hear a lot of hissing and gurgling sounds.
This is the sound when the last liquid in the bottom chamber is pushed up through the coffee grounds. At this stage, you should turn off the heat to prevent your coffee from becoming bitter and burnt.
? How Much Coffee To Put In A Moka Pot?
Each Moka Pot will hold a different amount of coffee. But for a standard 4-cup Bialetti Moka Pot, you will need about 14 to 17 grams of medium-grind ground coffee (almost as fine as table salt) to fill the basket.
? How Much Caffeine In Moka Pot Coffee?
With the Moka Pot, you can get up to 105 mg of caffeine in about two fluid ounces of coffee. The amount of caffeine in Moka Pot coffee will depend on the size, as larger pots will typically brew coffee with lower amounts of caffeine.
When he's not fiddling around with a new coffee gadget, you'll find him busy doing DIY projects around the home and taking his German Shepherd for a walk, who funnily enough is called Kona!
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