LATEST REVIEWS

Dark roast in the classic bittersweet style, complicated by delicate floral, dry fruit and pipe tobacco notes. A distracting astringency dampens an otherwise balanced, complex dark-roast cup.

The darkish roast turns the fruit tones dry and crisply grapefruity. Some charred and perhaps musty notes, but when juxtaposed with the sweet fruit they read as a sort of pleasantly burned chocolate.

Rich, round and balanced, with a sweetly understated acidity. Not a lot of nuance, but a hint of mustiness reads as an agreeably peppery chocolate. The finish is smooth, clean and long.

Simple in terms of nuance but splendid structure: rich and pleasing balance of sweet and roasty tones with a pleasant shimmer of acidity and suggestions of citrus and pineapple. The roast tones are rather heavily bitter when the cup is hot, but soften and round beautifully as it cools.

Intense, rich, straightforward. The aroma is deep-toned bittersweet chocolate with a slight roasty edge. Simplifies in the cup, perhaps under the impact of the roast, but expands again in the finish, with chocolate and hints of flowers.

Rich, almost disconcertingly distinct peanut tones dominate from aroma to finish. Supporting sweetness turns the peanut character agreeably fruity and chocolaty in the cup.

Dryly acidy but sweet, expansively fruity, distinctly floral. A crisp roastiness turns the fruit toward chocolate. Only a very slight bitter astringency mars this otherwise luxuriously exotic cup.

Wonderfully robust balance of sweet, roasty, and roundly acidy tones, with sweetness in the ascendancy. Some fruity complication, but the main appeal is pure, classic Latin-America coffee expression. The dark roast rounds and sweetens the acidity but leaves little bitterness behind.

This extreme light-roasted coffee displays the nutty, brisk character of light to medium roasts, but adds an impressive sweetness and richness that less skillfully executed light roasts fail to deliver. Intensely but sweetly acidy; chocolate and nut notes in the aroma, dry fruit and pipe tobacco in the finish.

Sweet floral and lemon tones shimmer above rather bitterly pungent bottom notes. The combination of juicy sweetness and pungent bitterness nets a sensation almost pineapple-like in its bracing contradiction. The pungent bottom notes, always present in Sidamos, are heavier than usual here, perhaps owing to the vicissitudes of decaffeination, though they settle and soften as the cup cools.

Masterpiece of understated balance and completeness: sweetly acidy with a slight edge of crisp roastiness. Some chocolate-toned fruit, but the main appeal of this coffee is its resounding depth and flawless balance of roast and coffee. The finish is as long, rich and quietly complex as any I can remember.

Ken (rating 81) reports: "Full-bodied, rather rich, but simple, with little nuance and a hint of bagginess." Kevin (rating 82): "Nice body, but the quakery appearance of the beans is reflected in a rather dull cup. Roasted at or past its limit given the modest inherent acidity of the green coffee."

Ken (rating 82) praises this coffee's "powerful acidity, big body, rich, wine-toned fruit," but complains "the acidity may be a touch bitter, finish astringent." Kevin (rating 85) is succinctly affirmative: "Caramel, nice acid-body balance, plush, simple, pure."

Ken (rating 85) writes: "Simple and without nuance, but agreeably envelops pungent roasty and crisply acidy tones in a fundamental sweetness." Kevin (rating 84): "Some liveliness, substantial body. Correct but forgettable."

Ken (rating 86) writes: "Sweet, round, with an agreeable balance of dry acidy notes and rich roastiness. Perhaps a bit shallow in range and dimension." Kevin (rating 85): "A dark roast that hits the 'sweet spot' of old-style Peet's/Starbucks roasting. Acidity in a supporting role but still present, luscious body and noteworthy complexity, all a testament to excellent green coffee and skillful roasting."

Ken (rating 86) writes: "Sweetly acidy and floral, with roasty chocolate notes - think chocolate-covered flowers. Acidity may be a touch overbearing, finish a bit heavy." Kevin (rating 86) is not excited: "Medium-bodied, straightforward, a bit dusty and chalky."

Ken (rating 87) praises this "high-toned, crisply balanced dark roast with a shimmer of grapefruit in the nose and chocolate in the cup." Kevin (rating 87) also likes it: "Excellent deep-but-not-dark-roast coffee. Syrupy depth, creamy body, good supporting acidity, rich cocoa and nut flavors."

For Ken (rating 87), "clean, crisp, but rich. Chocolate in the nose, flowers and citrus in the cup." Kevin (rating 89) writes: "Caramel and nut, fresh, clean, sweet. Not a powerhouse, but subtle, velvety and elegant - all Costa Rica virtues."

Ken's favorite (rating 90) in the cupping: "Richly acidy and roundly sweet. Grace notes suggest cocoa swooning toward lushly fruity pipe tobacco." Kevin (rating 86) seems a bit put off by its departure from the Costa Rica norm: "Lovely caramel aroma, medium-full body, lush bittersweet chocolate flavors that made me wonder which part of Guatemala this Costa Rica was grown in. Hedonistic rather than cerebral in its appeal; delightfully atypical."

For Ken (rating 86) this coffee is "classic but rather blunt. Pear and caramel notes in the nose but little nuance in the cup." Kevin (rating 90) acknowledges its limitations, but admires it greatly nonetheless: "Floral and caramel aromatic notes, medium-full body. Not complex but beautifully balanced, showing further sweetness as it cools."