LATEST REVIEWS

A simple but refreshing coffee: rather high-toned, delicate in body, gently acidy, with coffee fruit that reads as cherry with a sweet-pipe-tobacco twist. The finish is rich, clean, and surprisingly long.

A changeable coffee both as it cools and from session to session. Constants are a crisp coffee fruit that probably best reads as pear or cherry, a smoky, spicy chocolate sensation, and distinct floral notes that at times resemble an elegant, heady lilac. The finish tends to be heavy, but as the cup cools the long finish is finely floral.

A low-toned but deceptively lyric coffee. Rich in both aroma and cup: in aroma pear, caramel, and hints of flowers and cinnamon; in cup caramel, yellow fruit (peach?) and chocolate with hints of flowers and dry berry. The finish is agreeably chocolate-toned, particularly as the cup cools, although slightly heavy.

Low-toned fruit (peach?), semi-sweet chocolate and fresh-cut cedar notes in the aroma. The cup is delicate but lush, enlivened by a softly tart acidity and complicated by continued fruit (cherry, peach) and semi-sweet chocolate notes. The finish is simple but sweetly clean.

A tribute to the upside of slightly fermented fruit tones in coffee. Sweet and completely free of bitterness or saltiness, the ferment comes across as sweetly orange-toned in the aroma with a crisp hint of cedar, in the cup as a lushly ripe papaya- and peach-toned fruitiness that leans toward chocolate but never quite surrenders its tropical juiciness.

Everything explodes near the top of the profile in this intensely fragrant coffee. The aroma is rich with floral, sweet lemon and lush chocolate notes. Exhilarating floral tones dominate the cup, but to simply call them floral understates their complexity: This is a whole symphonic garden of flowers. The body is light but the impression and mouthfeel delicate and buoyant. Only the very slightest astringency in the finish mars this exceptional coffee.

In the aroma this relatively light-roasted coffee is caramelly but smoky, with cherry and sweet pipe tobacco notes. In the cup it is delicate yet robust and very sweet, with a smoothly rich acidity, heavy body, and a giddy complexity anchored around wine and cherry tones with hints of smoke and milk chocolate. The finish is clean, long and sweet.

Complex but balanced. The acidity is sweet and winy, the body medium but round in mouthfeel, the general impression delicate but rich. Milk chocolate, fruit (lemon, apricot, papaya) and a slight cedar pungency run through the profile from aroma to the pleasingly light-footed finish.

Intensely musty, aka "earthy." In the aroma, the musty tones read as a sort of ripe apricot rolled in earth and chocolate, but in the cup the mustiness flattens, simplifies, and dominates before softening slightly in the rather salty finish.

Muted aroma with roasty pine and spice notes and a hint of low-key fruit. Delicate in the cup, with distinct and explicit spice notes ? cinnamon, nutmeg perhaps, with a continuing hint of apricot-toned fruit.

Agreeable but a bit lazy in the aroma: spice, cedar, with the barest hint of apricot-toned chocolate. In the cup sweet, balanced gently rich, still dominated by cedar and smoke, but the chocolate-toned fruit, barely perceptible in the aroma, opens and blooms nicely.

Agreeably dominated by the roast. Deeply and gently charred cedar in aroma and cup, with hints of low-key fruit ? banana or papaya ? and chocolate. The astringency in the finish is nicely wrapped in a rich memory of fruit and chocolate.

At its best in the aroma: rich, deep, smoky, cedary, with undercurrents of sweet dark chocolate. Crisply bittersweet in the cup, with rich, slightly charred cedar and hints of spice-toned cherry. Sweet and chocolaty in the short finish, though rather sharply astringent in the long.

Rich, low-key, smoky, with an agreeably mild musty ferment that reads in aroma and cup as raisins and semi-sweet chocolate. In the aroma complex, in the cup balanced but a bit simple; surprisingly clean, soft finish.

In the aroma cedar, spice, papaya, and a hint of semi-sweet chocolate. Delicate in the cup, with very sweet citrus notes, pink grapefruit perhaps, and a distinct cedar character with a continuing hint of chocolate. Rather heavy finish for such a light-footed coffee.

Lushly high-toned, remarkably complex aroma: flowers (tea-rose?), temperate fruit (pear perhaps), milk chocolate. Slumps toward a lower-key bittersweet character in the cup with only occasional glimpses of chocolate, but the giddy floral top notes persist. Slightly shallow finish.

Delicately rich and comfortably round, dominated by a winy ferment that reads as spice, mango, chocolate and cedar in the aroma, cocoa and spice in the cup. Rich finish with only the slightest tickle of astringency.

Deeply and opulently sweet, big-bodied, with a bracing, bitter edge of spice, herb and cedar. The cup reveals undercurrents of wine-toned fruit. The short finish is rich, the long leaves us with a slight astringent saltiness.

Powerful and complex. Extraordinary aroma: spice, a fresh, nostril-tingling cedar, low-toned tropical fruit, bananas perhaps. In the cup a tingle of sweet acidity, more cedar, and fruit that turns sweetly and richly tart - grapefruit, tamarind. Memories of this complexity persist in the finish, softening a mild astringency. Reader Amy Bowser nominated this coffee, calling it "clean but with huge depth and character."

This unusually light roasted Sumatra is very sweet and richly high-toned, and exceptional in its lush but delicate expression of the natural character of coffee fruit and flower. The fruit suggests cherry leaning toward unsweetened chocolate, but those who have visited coffee farms will recognize it as the taste of the coffee fruit itself, with shimmers of jasmine-like coffee flower. The short finish is cherryish and rich, though the long leaves us with just the slightest hint of astringency.