Reviews for Willoughby's Coffee & Tea
Dry berry notes (the famous Kenya "black currant"), lemon, dusk flowers and a hint of dark chocolate open in the intense aroma and carry with pungent authority into the cup. Balanced acidity, supple mouthfeel, deep, flavor-saturated finish.
Balanced, delicate. Softly pungent, floral-toned aroma. In the cup gentle acidity, silky mouthfeel, essential sweetness, great purity, with cocoa and continued floral notes.
Heady flowers, lemon and menthol in the aroma with backgrounded suggestions of honey and butter. In the cup balanced acidity, surprisingly full body, and a continued rich complex of flowers, lemon and honey. Flavor fades rather quickly in the finish.
A dramatically light roast of a flawless coffee nets an intensely high-toned, delicate cup. Honey and flowers in the aroma, in the cup sweet-toned, wine-like acidity, silky mouthfeel, continued honey, flowers and white wine with a pungent hint of pipe tobacco. The finish is rich and dry without imbalancing astringency.
Big, deep, classically symphonic coffee. Intense aroma: black-cherryish fruit, white wine, flowers. In the cup syrupy body, powerful but rounded acidity, pungently juicy flavor with sweet lemon and night flower notes. Pure, smooth, fruit-and-flower saturated finish.
Delicate but intense aroma, with milk chocolate, nut and coffee fruit notes that read as tart cherry. In the cup impressive balance and structure: lushly sweet but crisply acidy with a lightly syrupy mouthfeel. Continued tart cherry and chocolate notes carry into a simple but cleanly rich finish.
Sweet-toned, quietly intense aroma: jasmine, sweet citrus, cocoa. In the cup the mouthfeel is silky, almost syrupy, the acidity intense but delicate with shimmers of white wine. Orange, lemon, cocoaish chocolate, floral notes. Long, deep, flavor-saturated finish.
Intense, exuberantly complex aroma: orange, grapefruit, honey, cedar, black currant. In the cup the acidity is intense and sweet, the mouthfeel syrupy, the flavor continuingly complex, dry yet lush: black currant, grapefruit, wine, a hint of milk chocolate. The finish is superb: saturated with grapefruit and chocolate, sweet, rich, long.
Intense, floral-toned aroma with pungent suggestions of prune and cedary chocolate. In the cup very smoothly balanced, with soft acidity, silky mouthfeel and a richly dry, distinct cocoa that sustains its presence in the long finish.
An extraordinarily pure coffee in a dramatically light roast style. Sweet nut, fresh-cut cedar and orangy citrus in the aroma. Medium-bodied and giddily sweet in the cup, delicate but rich, with low, wine-toned acidity, an orange-toned fruit and hints of nut, flowers and chocolate. The complex fruit notes carry into a quietly rich, clean finish.
Sweetly smoky, fruity aroma. In the cup light to medium body with a silky mouthfeel and quiet balance between a gentle acidity and a discreetly roast (cedar and toast) character. A hint of dark chocolate in the cup and butterscotch in the simple but rich finish.
Sweet, deeply dimensioned floral notes dip toward spice and nut in the aroma. The cup is lemony, but it is a complex, deep lemon, modulating toward dry chocolate in the finish. Saved from any hint of candyish sentiment by richly acidy mid-notes.
Superb aroma: rich, acidy, alive with nut and vanilla overtones. In the cup less range but still pleasingly high-toned: acidy, buoyant, and bright with hints of flowers and fruit.
A more authoritative, richer version of the Honomalino Kona Peaberry. The nose is rounder, the acidity brighter and brisker,the body fuller. The tantalizing tickle of flowers and fruit remains, complicating and elevating the dry acidy notes.
A hard, baggy pungency. A sweet, soft (perhaps floral) sweetness. When the two work together we get an agreeable sweet/sharp taste that suggests chocolate. The sweet subtext prevails pleasantly in the aftertaste.
A rather refined profile, lighter and sweeter than most Sumatras, with clean hints of fruit and flowers under the usual Sumatra pungency. Much more expansively buoyant at the top of the profile than the other Sumatras in the cupping.
A fresh, clean, delightfully natural sweetness is balanced by a drier but still fruity pungency. A fine and distinctive coffee, though memorable more for what it gives out front than what it insinuates. The profile is immediate and pleasing rather than deep.
Another solid, heavy-centered Sumatra. Here, however, the dark center reveals hints of wine and a character more complexly pungent than sweet. The pungency is free of earthy or hard notes, and reads as the very quintessence of rich.
Floral and vanilla tones hover in the high-toned acidity, exciting without distracting. The acidity is authoritative despite its floral delicacy and the body surprisingly substantial, although the entire profile loses momentum in the finish.
One more terrific, full-bore Kenya. The rich, winy acidity carries us up and out, expanding the boundaries of the profile and revealing the usual mouth-filling resonance at the heart of the coffee.
