Reviews for Zingerman's Coffee
Aroma of fermented fruit that reads pleasantly as sweet berry, with soft wine and nut suggestions. In the cup bright toned acidity, medium-to-full body and smooth mouthfeel. Tart cherry softens and rounds toward the sweet berry noted in the aroma, balanced by pungent suggestions of aromatic wood. Fruit-toned sweetness carries into the long finish.
Deep aroma with soft notes of chocolate, nut and fruit. In the cup, gentle acidity, full body and simple, sweet-toned flavors of coffee fruit, honey and nut. The sweetness lingers in a finish that turns a touch dry and tight in the long.
Co-cupper Jim Reynolds and Ken both admired this coffee, but Ken, at 90, was less admiring than Jim at 95. Essentially, Jim found everything he wanted in an African coffee of this style - a combination of complexity, balance and deep dimension - whereas Ken liked what he found but wanted more of it, more intensity and a more pronounced, distinctive character. Both admired a bright, citrusy but delicate acidity, silky mouthfeel, and a mildly pungent chocolate that Jim described as "smoky chocolate" and Ken as "cocoa and aromatic wood." Jim found the aftertaste "lingering," Ken found it pleasing but short.
Co-taster Byron Holcomb (92) found more going on aromatically in this poised, balanced espresso than did Ken (89). Byron: "Aroma notes of brandy, honey and walnut yielded [to] flavors of passion fruit and orange bitters. The aftertaste was ? dry with notes of bakers' cocoa. In milk, some of the great spice notes showed: cinnamon, coriander, allspice."
A versatile espresso with a pungent authority that should serve particularly well in big milk drinks. Slightly spicy, apricot- or mango-toned fruit in the deeply sweet-impressioned aroma. In the small cup displays full, syrupy body and a rather opulently sweet, chocolate-toned richness with a balancing cedar pungency. Slight astringency in the long finish. In milk rounds and blossoms nicely but dominates with semi-sweet chocolate authority and a slight but discernible astringent edge in the finish.