How the finder chooses
Five answers, one ranked shelf
The finder scores every coffee we sell against your answers and shows the six best first, with the rest on request. A coffee whose score falls below zero drops out, so an answer can exclude as well as favour. Three answers are outright filters — how you brew, whether you have a grinder, and the decaf switch. Milk, flavour and intensity never remove a coffee; they only move it up or down the list. A few combinations return nothing, and the finder says so rather than pad the shelf: today that is a moka pot with decaf only, or a cafetière or filter with decaf only, because all three of our decaffeinated coffees are made for an espresso machine or a capsule machine.
How you make coffee. Every coffee carries the methods it is made for, taken from the pack rather than guessed from its format. The finder matches your answer against that list: a coffee that names your method scores highest, one that names other methods drops out, and one that names none stays in the running without a bonus. Format then adds a small nudge — ground coffee for a moka pot or filter, beans for espresso. Cafetière or filter matches a coffee that names either. A capsule machine is the one hard filter: only capsules are shown, and a capsule box qualifies on being a capsule box, whatever else its page says.
Whether you grind. We sell coffee as it comes and do not grind to order, so answering that the coffee needs to arrive ground takes out every whole-bean coffee — 58 of the 81 — and leaves the ground tins and the capsules. Answering yes removes nothing. A bean-to-cup machine counts as yes: it grinds each cup itself, which is why the question asks whether the beans can be ground rather than whether you own a grinder.
How you drink it. Most packs say whether the coffee is made for milk or for drinking black, and the finder reads that first — 46 of our coffees say with milk, 6 say black. Where a coffee says neither, it falls back to a reading of the Arabica share and the intensity: all-Arabica blends and anything up to 6 lean black, 7 and above stand up in a latte or a flat white. Either leaves the question out.
The flavours that pull you in. Three families read the tasting notes on each coffee, and nothing else: chocolate and nuts (cocoa, hazelnut, caramel, biscuit, honey), fruity and floral (citrus, berries, jasmine, bergamot, wine), classic and roasted (toast, spice, bread crust, malt, tobacco). A coffee whose notes span every family counts less for any one of them; the points are shared.
How intense you like it. The scale is intensity of roast and body from 1 to 10, not caffeine, and it is the same figure you see on the product page. Gentle matches 1 to 4, balanced 5 and 6, bold 7 and above — the bands our Intensity filter uses. Every coffee in the band you choose comes before any coffee outside it, whatever your other answers; if fewer than six fit, the closest intensities follow, each marked stronger or milder than you asked. Surprise me leaves it out.
Ties and stock. A coffee in stock gets a point; where scores tie, Caffè Vergnano comes first — the roaster we distribute. Decaf only shows the real decaffeinated coffees, however few they are, never padded; with the switch off a decaf carries a three-point penalty, which lowers its score and, where it has little else scoring for it, drops it out.
Brewer to coffee
Which format fits which brewer
The finder settles on the method the pack names, not the format; this table is the other way round — what to buy once you know how you brew. Beans keep best but need a grinder of your own; ground coffee is milled for the brewer named on the pack; capsules fit one system only.
| How you make it | The format to buy | Typical dose | What we stock |
|---|---|---|---|
| Espresso machine | Whole beans, ground just before the shot; a fine espresso grind if you have no grinder | 7 g a single, 16 g a double | 62 whole-bean coffees, 13 ground |
| Bean-to-cup machine | Whole beans; the machine grinds and doses each cup | 7 to 12 g by the strength setting | 62 whole-bean coffees |
| Moka pot | Ground for moka, a medium grind; the tins labelled moka are milled for it | 15 g per 3-cup pot | 13 ground coffees |
| Cafetière or filter | Ground, coarser for a cafetière, medium for filter and batch brewers; beans if you grind | 15 g per 250 ml cup | 13 ground coffees, beans |
| Nespresso® Original machine | Nespresso®-compatible capsules, one per cup, for the Original line only (not Vertuo, not the professional systems) | 1 capsule | Caffè Vergnano 1882 Cremoso 10 Capsules NESPRESSO Compatible - Compostable, Caffè Vergnano 1882 Intenso 10 Capsules NESPRESSO Compatible - Compostable, Caffè Vergnano 1882 Napoli 10 Capsules NESPRESSO Compatible - Compostable, Caffè Vergnano 1882 Oro 10 Capsules NESPRESSO Compatible - Compostable, STARBUCKS Breakfast Blend 10 Capsules NESPRESSO, STARBUCKS Caramel 10 Capsules NESPRESSO, STARBUCKS Espresso Roast 10 Capsules NESPRESSO, STARBUCKS Italian Style Roast 10 Capsules NESPRESSO |
| FAP / Espresso Point machine | FAP capsules, one per cup, boxed by the hundred | 1 capsule | Caffè Vergnano 1882 Classico FAP 100 Capsules, Caffè Vergnano 1882 Decaffeinato FAP 100 Capsules |
| Another capsule system | We do not stock capsules for other systems. Tell us the machine and we will say honestly whether we can help. | ||
Doses are the typical values from our dose table, the same ones the estimate on the business finder uses; your machine, grind and recipe will move them. Decaf: 3 decaffeinated coffees, behind the Decaf only switch above. The guides How to choose coffee for your brew method and How much coffee to use go through the methods and the doses in full.