Introducing Whole Latte Love Italian Stallion

Maromas Premium Coffees have long been a favorite of Whole Latte Love customers for many years and we have a storied partnership with the Bihler family that dates back to the earliest years of our company’s history. Today, I’m pleased to introduce a new chapter in our collaboration with Maromas, starting with the release of Italian Stallion, our very first collaboration coffee. To celebrate its release, I sat down with Tobias Bihler of Maromas to tell me a bit more about the origins and inspiration behind the blend and share some of his insights and opinions on coffee blending, freshness, and modern specialty coffee.

What is a Collaboration Coffee?

As you can see from the bag, Italian Stallion is a Whole Latte Love coffee, but it’s a little different from the other coffees we’ve released so far. This blend is sourced and roasted for us by Maromas in Italy and then shipped to us here in the USA. Compared to our other coffees, Italian Stallion comes in the traditional 2.2lb or 1kg format that many of our customers will recognize. It’s also unique from them in that, while still being blended from specialty grade coffees, it’s not a 100% Arabica blend (we’ll be talking about that in just a moment).

Italian Stallion at a Glance

Italian Stallion is a 70/30 Arabica, Robusta blend in the style of a traditional medium roast espresso; however, it's also composed entirely of specialty coffees (including the Robusta). We live in an era filled with experimentation when it comes to coffee. With co-ferments and anaerobic fermentation becoming more popular among home drinkers, the perception of what modern specialty coffee "is" or perhaps what it "should be" has begun to change. With that in mind, I asked Tobias for his thoughts on the topic.

We find what the Third Wave movement has brought to coffee over the past decade incredibly exciting. It opened up new perspectives, new conversations, and pushed quality standards in many ways. And we truly respect that. At the same time, we don’t fully align with everything. In some cases, it has taken on very extreme forms. That doesn’t mean it’s wrong — it just means it’s not always aligned with how we see coffee culture.

For us, it’s incredibly important to respect what Italian coffee culture has achieved globally. If you look at espresso specifically — which is still the most widely consumed brewing method in the world — no other country has refined and evolved that craft over decades the way Italy has. So our idea with Italian Stallion was to create a bridge between old school and new school. To take the heritage, the structure, the crema, the boldness — but refine it with the precision and quality awareness that modern specialty culture has introduced.

Not everyone is a competition-level barista. And they don’t have to be. But at the same time, we also want to satisfy those who love dialing in their espresso and pushing their skills further. That’s what makes the Whole Latte Love community so exciting. It’s a broad spectrum — from passionate home baristas to people who simply want a consistent, high-quality espresso every morning. Italian Stallion was designed to live comfortably in both worlds.

Brewing Italian Stallion

Our Recipe

Temperature: 198ºF
Dose: 15 - 16g
Out: 30 - 32g
Time: 20 - 23 Seconds

Compared to Crema Wave, Italian Stallion is much bolder and more intense. Several members of our sales team commented on its strength and distinctly Italian character, but I think Filipa said it best:

It's our first true European espresso. Bold and strong, without acidity at the end. Think chocolate mousse flavor AND GREAT BUZZ. I have been in great mood since.

The general opinion was also that Italian Stallion would be great with milk to emphasize its more chocolaty notes.

Blending with Robusta

In specialty coffee, most people generally don’t think about Robusta (the more common name for Coffea canephora). The perception of Robusta comes from its long history as a mass market blend component with a very small and niche percentage of Robusta coffee being cultivated in such a way as to garner high enough q-grading results to be considered specialty. However, Robusta coffee has a long history of being included in coffee blends to add body, caffeine, and decisive flavor to cut through milk.

I asked Tobias to talk about blending with Robusta coffees as a component and the different attributes they bring when compared to Arabica.

What excites us is showing that there are truly impressive Robusta qualities out there — complex, clean, structured, with depth. If you source carefully and treat it with the same respect as a high-end Arabica, Robusta can bring something incredibly powerful and beautiful to a blend. It’s not about using Robusta as a cost-saving component. It’s about using it intentionally — for structure, crema, intensity, and character.

Discussing a bit further, he also emphasized the role of Robusta coffee in mitigating acidity in coffee that people can often find unpleasant and its ability to emphasize particular flavors in a blend:

In terms of the basic aromas and cupping notes, it’s easier to match Robusta with aromas and flavors not based on acidity. In our experience many people don’t like acidity in coffee, with Robusta, especially with a high quality one, you can achieve more dark chocolate notes for example. It's kind of strange that many people out there don’t like acidity but they've been convinced they need to buy 100% Arabica coffee.

India Kaapi Royale

One of the two blend components used in Italian Stallion is a washed Robusta coffee from India called Kaapi Royale.

With cupping scores in the 80s, Kaapi Royale is considered specialty coffee and can be compared to Brazilian Arabica, albeit with heavier body and contributing more crema. It’s also worth pointing out that Kaapi Royale, and Robusta coffee in general, contains roughly twice the caffeine content of Arabica coffees and we’re not shy about saying that Italian Stallion definitely hits harder when it comes to caffeine.

Coffee and Shelf Stability

Unlike our other Whole Latte Love coffees, Italian Stallion is the first to be roasted overseas in Italy rather than here in the United States. As someone who's roasted coffee for decades, I asked Tobias for his perspective on the topic of coffee freshness for peak consumption.

If we’re discussing a very light-roasted single origin — something highly floral and fruit-forward — then freshness is absolutely critical. Those volatile aromatic compounds evolve and fade relatively quickly, especially in lighter roasts. So in that case, being close to the roast date truly matters. But if we’re talking about an espresso blend with a more traditional Italian profile, we see it differently.

Seeing things differently means acknowledging that some espresso blends are simply a different kind of product. And to that end, that different coffees have different development times, and in the case of coffees like Italian Stallion can still produce balanced and integrated cups even a year after roast.

Extremely fresh espresso — especially within just a few days after roasting — can actually be quite aggressive. There’s still a lot of CO₂ trapped inside the beans, and that can make extraction unstable. You get sharp peaks and uneven flavor development. From our perspective, for a classic espresso blend, coffee that’s within a year of roast date — when stored properly — is absolutely usable and can still perform at a very high level.

Behind the Bag

We’re incredibly proud to say that our collaboration with Maromas went beyond the coffee, and that we also contributed to the design of the bag as well. I sat down with Elley Ellison, our Senior Graphic Designer to talk to her a bit about her process of designing the bag for Italian Stallion and her inspirations for the imagery. She was kind enough to share a behind the scenes look at her design process.

Talking with Elley

Is this the first coffee bag that you’ve designed (or contributed designs to) for Whole Latte Love?

It is! I was able to take creative direction on the redesign of Italian Stallion and spearhead the new design, making it align with the other Whole Latte Love bags while keeping it separate enough to be recognized also as a Maromas coffee.

What was some of the inspiration behind the design you settled on for Italian Stallion?

A little fact about me is that I am a big fan of history, especially during the Greco-Roman era. I took inspiration from the other bags we have and loved that each one had their own little world. I wanted to bring this direction to Italian Stallion: to create a world surrounding the Greco-Roman culture and timeline, mixing visuals iconic to modern Firenze, Roma & del Vaticanco, especially since Maromas is roasted in Italy.

Espresso is from Italy but the ancient Romans never drank coffee, do you think they would like it?

For sure! The ancient Romans may have enjoyed standing out on the balcony, sipping on a cup of coffee or strolling in the Forum.

Final Thoughts

So if you've read all this and you're left wondering, should I try a bag of Italian Stallion? My answer is a resounding yes. I'm also pleased to say that this coffee is the first, but not the last collaboration we have planned with Maromas this year. Our high octane Warp Drive blend is speeding towards us and will be hitting our solar system for a release later this summer so keep your eyes peeled for that!

Photography by Grace Walker

Special Thanks to Tobias Bihler and Elley Ellison

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