Reviews for Counter Culture Coffee
Remarkable aromatic balance and big, suavely sweet acidity make this a remarkable blend despite its relatively light body and short finish. Dark chocolate, aromatic wood, tart, cherryish fruit carry from aroma through cup with poised authority.
An intensely complex aroma: flowers, lemon, plum, pungent fresh-cut pine, toast. Fruit tones persist in the sweet acidity and delicately juicy mouthfeel. Balanced, rounded flavor: orangy sweetness to heady flowers to gentle chocolate notes. Finishes cleanly, with mild citrus notes that sweeten in the long.
Rustic ferment notes in the aroma read as aromatic wood, coconut, baking spices, mango. Full, smooth mouthfeel with a range of complex flavors including tropical fruit, smoky bittersweet chocolate and aromatic wood. Dry, sweet finish, with suggestions of grapefruit and cocoa.
Bittersweet aroma with baking spices, chocolate and walnut. Sweet acidity in the cup with dark berry, stone fruit, cocoa and cedar notes. Rich finish, with more chocolate tones lingering in the long.
Complex aroma, with distinct ferment notes that read as blueberry and dessert wine with hints of walnut and cedar. Sweet and balanced in the cup, with creamy body, notes of cocoa nibs and cherry cordial and hints of leather, aromatic wood and dry Mediterranean herbs. Sweet toned finish with mild astringency developing in the long.
A bright, citrusy profile. Very sweet-toned aroma with tight-knit complexity: flowers, pipe tobacco, and a soft, orangy citrus. In the cup pronounced acidity, medium body, richly distinct floral notes with continued citrus notes that turn toward a sweet but tart grapefruit under the influence of the acidity.
Roundly balanced, quietly rich coffee. Soft aroma with nut and chocolate notes. In the cup gently rich acidity, lightly syrupy mouthfeel, cherry-chocolate notes that carry into a simple but full finish.
A slight menthol-like astringency throughout the profile is the only restraint to this otherwise exceptional, complexly engaging coffee. In the aroma sweet-toned and balanced with pungent orange and butterscotch notes and hints of flowers and nut. The acidity is gentle and integrated, the cup very sweet but crisp in structure, with continued orange, nut, flower and very distinct cocoa or baker's chocolate notes. The nut and floral notes carry into a rich finish, although the shadow tightness that nags its way through the cup has the last word as the nuts and flowers fade.
A quietly distinctive coffee that rewards attentiveness. Balanced, round, resonant in structure with restrained but pleasing aromatics: white wine, walnut, cedar, hints of flowers and chocolate. The chocolate tendencies amplify in an impressively rich finish.
Sweet-toned, soft aroma with flickers of flowers, chocolate and pear-like temperate fruit. In the cup quietly acidy, with a richly syrupy mouthfeel and a round, balanced structure. Continued flowers, chocolate and fruit, though in the cup the fruit is more honeyish date than pear. Simple, rich finish.
Deeply and sweetly acidy throughout the profile. In the aroma intensely floral with orange, honey and pipe tobacco. In the cup the mouthfeel is syrupy, the acidity cherry-toned and lush. Sweet, rich finish with fine flavor persistence in the short, slight astringency in the long.
Soft, sweet-toned aroma with limited but pleasing nuance: cedar, perhaps tomato. Remains sweet in the cup, crisply delicate, with very pronounced sweet cocoa tones. Superb finish: sweet, long and cocoa-laced.
The attraction of this coffee is a structure both powerful and elegant: richly and roundly acidy, with silky-verging-on-syrupy mouthfeel, fundamental sweetness, and ringing depth of sensation. The wispy hints of chocolate, cherry and cedar are a bonus. Reader Mike Venditto's nomination of a Counter Culture coffee was not available, so we substituted this rather similar Bolivia.
Opulently complex aroma: cherry, blueberry, dry semi-sweet chocolate, brandy. In the cup very sweet, gently rich; the chocolate grows rounder and more distinct with continued blueberry and brandy complication. The rich, dry brandy notes dominate a slight astringency in the finish.
A voluptuously sweet coffee, with roundly integrated acidity, great balance and elegance, and a resonant, cherry-toned fruit that carries through the profile from the intense aroma to the rich, finely clean finish. Complicating notes of fresh cedar, flowers and black currant in both aroma and cup. The fruit turns slightly chocolate toward the finish.
A refreshingly medium roast delivers a dry fragrance of crisp linen scented with geranium that develops into wet aromas of spiced chocolate and browned sugar sweetness with wisps of burned match-like sulfur. Pleasing heft and complexity in the cup. A muscular coffee with a surprisingly crisp and clean finish.
The aggressive dark roast simplifies this naturally sweet, chocolaty coffee and turns it a bit monolithic. A deep-toned, dry, chocolate-nuanced roastiness dominates, relieved by only a tickle of sweetness. The finish is richly bittersweet, but hints at rubber as the cup cools.
Roasty, sweet, and round in the nose. In the cup the roastiness reveals a sharp bitterness, brightened by a hint of floral sweetness that softens toward burned chocolate in the finish. A full body offsets the bitterness.
Pungently rich and round in the nose. In the cup the signature hard mustiness is balanced by sweetness, particularly in the finish.
Rich, deep, intense, with the dry fruit robustness of a cabernet and the tartly sweet black currant notes so cherished by lovers of Kenya. In the finish swoons into a ringing, almost sugary sweetness.
