LATEST REVIEWS

A coffee at once voluptuous and austere. Delicately complex aroma: flowers, chocolate, tobacco leaf, lemon grass. In the cup an amazingly rich, wine-like acidity, sweet flowers, and a gently crisp, dry berry fruit. Hints of chocolate re-emerge in the cleanly long, almost perfect finish.

Very sweet-toned, exquisitely balanced aroma with floral, candied lemon and sweet herb notes. In the cup intense, tartly sweet acidity and buoyant mouthfeel with white wine and continued sweet lemon notes. The barest hint of chocolate in the cup blooms with soft explicitness in the surprisingly sweet finish. The cup stiffens ever so slightly as it cools.

Dark chocolate and caramel in the aroma. Luscious body, cherry-laced dark chocolate in the cup.

Cocoa and caramel aroma. Blazing acidity, dark chocolate and caramel, regal balance. A nicely conducted, relatively light roast makes this balanced but assertive coffee particularly well-suited for vacuum pot and drip brewing.

Crisply acidy but big-bodied and lavishly chocolate-toned. Vanilla bean complicates the chocolate in the finish. A tactful match of roast to coffee.

Huge body, luscious Belgian chocolate flavor with plenty of supporting acidity. Vanilla bean along with the chocolate in the finish. Roast is perfectly matched to the coffee.

Mouth watering dark chocolate laced with butter caramel and black cherry, subtler flavors of cigar leaf and mace. Razor sharp acidity. Extraordinary concentration, vigor and balance. Exceptionally skillful, tender roast that lets the coffee shine.

Cocoa and dark chocolate aroma, vigorous flavors of dark chocolate laced with cherry, medium-full body, intense, focused acidity, great purity. Ideally roasted.

Spectacularly aromatic in both dry and infused aroma: candied lemon peel, bergamot, hints of jasmine. Medium bodied and sweet, with superb acidity and flavors that suggest both the mentholated citrus of a Yirgacheffe and the blueberry notes of a Harrar, but without a trace of ferment or earthiness. Perfumed perfection.

Cocoa laced with citrus in the aroma. Flavors are as complex and sculpted as a top Alsatian Riesling, with intense lemon and orange acidity, chocolate, and a suggestion of fresh chive or tarragon always associated with this variety. A powerful, aristocratic grand cru. This fragile, low-density variety is a major challenge to roast (and cannot handle dark roasting); this is a particularly masterful roasting job.

Chocolate and citrus on the break. Regal acidity, complex flavors of chocolate, citrus and herbs. A powerful, intense and demanding cup. Haunting, persistent finish. Perfect roast of this especially challenging bean. What great coffee is all about.

Deep, sweetly pungent aroma: cedar, banana-like fruit, a hint of flowers. Big-bodied in the cup, with continued pungently sweet character and limited nuance, mainly cedar and some cedar-toned chocolate. Simple but rich in the finish.

Sweetly pungent aroma with hints of chocolate, cedar, low-acid fruit, pear perhaps. In the cup medium-bodied but silky in mouthfeel, with great sweetness, a roast-muted tartness, elegant floral notes and coffee fruit turned toward cocoa under the influence of the roast. Rich, sweet and cocoa-toned in the short finish, rather astringent in the long.

Intense, gently pungent aroma with great, low-toned complexity: vanilla, honey, caramel, banana, semi-sweet chocolate. In the cup a heavy bittersweetness and rough mouthfeel initially dominate, but as the cup begins to cool a honeyish sweetness and rich semi-sweet chocolate emerge and persist into the finish.

Delicate, lyrically sweet-toned aroma with flowers, flowering grass and a lush shimmer of molasses. In the cup delicate but intense, with sweetly tart, white-wine-toned acidity, light-bodied but silky mouthfeel, and continued fresh, aromatic grass notes. Surprisingly rich in the short finish with a shadow of grassy astringency in the long.

Very sweet-toned aroma with a round, banana-like fruit and hints of fresh-cut cedar, flowers, and sweet spice. Remains sweet in the cup with a sort of banana-bread molasses-and-fruit character, but the roast impact is lean and a touch bitterish. Rich short finish, slightly heavy long.

Rather muted, mildly sweet, gingerbready aroma. Plumps up nicely in the cup, however: full-bodied, round, deep, with toasty caramel and fat, banana-toned fruit. Cleanly rich, sweet 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-toned, gently roasty aroma with distinct grapefruit notes and the barest hints of cedar and chocolate. In the cup the roast tones are sharper but still sweet, reading even more clearly as a richly pungent grapefruit with a slight chocolate cast. Deep finish with almost no astringency. A slight unevenness from cup to cup brought down the rating of this fundamentally distinguished dark-roasted coffee.

An exhilarating and intense blueberry and wine character dominates the profile from aroma to finish. In the aroma the blueberry and wine tones are particularly pure and sweet. In the cup things grow more complicated: the blueberry takes a chocolate turn and the wine may strike some palates as too aggressively fermented. The finish is even more ambiguous, as the blueberry fruit persists nicely but takes a slightly soapy, salty direction. There are some coffee professionals who would give this unorthodox coffee a rating of 95; others would throw it off the table at 75.