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Illy espresso beans are my favorite of all the widely available commercially produced roasted espresso beans. But Illy definitely produces a higher quality bean. When properly ground, tamped, and brewed Illy espresso has a delightful aroma and flavor, unmatched by any of the other brands. However, you get what you pay for.
Moreover, since the moisture content of the beans varies a bit from batch to batch, quality control in the roasting process is extremely important. One way to judge the quality of roasted espresso beans even before you taste the coffee that they will produce is to look at the evenness of color and size of the beans. Moreover, even when the beans are of a uniform size, it is important that they be roasted in small batches and churned during the the entire roasting process to ensure that they all get roasted to the same point. And it is here that Illy is unmatched. This is why most high quality coffee is roasted in small batches in a rotating drum that roasts all the beans to the exact same point. This is the standard medium roast that Illy produces and it is a bit less aggressive and milder tasting than the dark roasts of Lavazza (the other major Italian brand that some people favor).
The reason is that beans of a uniform size tend to roast more evenly than beans of varying sizes. Just do a simple visual comparison of the color and consisteny of Illy beans when compared to any of the other widely available brands and you can easily see why Illy is the best. Granted, Illy is quite pricey, and I do not use it all the time for this reason. Usually, I buy my espresso from a small roasting house in the Midwest that produces a decent medium roast substitute that I do not mind using most of the time.
It's a little more expensive than buying beans locally but the difference is astounding. I make espresso with a Delonghi Magnifica Super Auto Espresso machine and I have found Illy Medium Roast to produce the best results possible.
Well since I returned to the states in 1985 I have tried all kinds of expresso beans, using mostly Starbucks. I vaguely remembered the Illy brand from my 8 months in Italy and decided to try it. I've been drinking espresso since 1983 when I was introduced to it by Signor Forza in Rome. I happened across a can of Illy beans at a Tucson store. It is inarguably the best espresso I have had since returning from Italy. I found out that Italians have a saying "Only women and babies drink cappucino after 9:00". What that means is that all the men take a coffee (espresso) break at 9:00.
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