Reviews for Alterra Coffee Roasters
An aromatically rather simple coffee with a tremendous relaxed and almost voluptuous structure. In the aroma low-toned and round with hints of flowers and cherry-toned fruit. Softly acidy and sweetly and deeply rich in the cup. Sweet, almost sugary finish.
Superb aroma: "sultry and exotic" for co-cupper Danny O'Neill; "richly complex" for Ken, with "milk chocolate, sweet tomato, apricot and cedar" notes. Both Danny (87) and Ken (88) admired the quiet complexity and balance of the cup; "gently bittersweet and chocolaty" for Ken, "dark and smoky" for Danny. Both noted a slight hardening of the cup as it cooled.
In the nose intensely roasty and intensely alive with pungently sweet fruit - passion fruit, or sweet grapefruit. In the cup the powerful coupling of sweet fruit and bitterish roast tones persists. Patient palates may read a raisin-toned dark chocolate in the roasty fruit.
Ingratiating and open, this coffee makes the most of what it brings to the cup. Not bright but gently lively, nicely balanced between sweet and dry tones, with a pleasant supporting resonance. As the cup cools a slight, almost indistinguishable (storage-related?) hardness seems to shadow the sweetness.