LATEST REVIEWS

Complex and exotic, this moderately dark-roasted blend sits sharply but sweetly on the palate. Floral notes and faintly ferment-toned fruit complicate the cup, but both nuance and sweetness fade in the finish, leaving behind a roasty bitterness some coffee drinkers may find pleasingly pungent, others a touch overbearing.

Powered by the earthy, slightly musty, forest-floor notes of (I assume) Sulawesi or Sumatra coffees, with an added touch of acidy brightness and sweetness. The earthy notes hint pleasantly at chocolate. Marred by a slight metallic note as the cup cools.

The clean nut-like notes and undertone of spice are unusual for a moderately dark-roasted coffee like this one. The body is impressively full, the finish roasty and pungent with a mild but pleasing bitterness.

Here the whole is more than the parts. A balanced structure of sweetness and bitterness and a plump, smooth body compensate for a relative lack of nuance. For some coffee drinkers, the bitterness may assert itself a bit too strongly in the aftertaste.

A pleasingly balanced American cup. Nut and vanilla tones shimmer in the nose and a comfortable sweetness predominates in the cup, lifted by a discreet acidity. Bitter undertones confer authority to the cup but tend to dominate in the rather flat aftertaste.

A breakfast blend with a good deal of character but little balance or coherence. The sweet front end with its pleasingly exotic edge of floral notes and ferment-toned fruit (Ethiopia Harrars?) is precariously supported by a smoky, pungent dark-roast bottom. Eventually, however, the roasty bitterness prevails in a rather severe finish.

The virtue here is a round and gentle sweetness, the weakness simplicity. The sweetness fades a bit in the finish.

A full-bodied, richly acidy morning blend laced with dry fruit tones. A slight astringency haunts the cup, masked by rich aromatics when the cup is hot, but a bit puckerish as the coffee cools.

A splendidly pure, clear, ringing profile, with a sweet floral acidity some jurors compared to the great Kenya coffees. A hint of deeper, pruny fruit gave the profile ballast and authority. My initial score almost perfectly matched the collective score, but as the cup cooled it seemed to simplify and to allow the acidity to dominate. Hence my mildly dissenting score.

Superb range: delicate floral top notes, sweet cherryish middle, bitter, muskily animal bottom. A full but subtle sweetness prevails in the cup, a rich bitterness in the aftertaste. As exotic and complex as a gamelon performance.

A superb Sulawesi: rich, big-bodied but smooth, with a shimmer of acidity animating its heart. Elegant balance of bitter and sweet tones, fine range from middle to bottom of the profile, a hint of flowers, and deep, dry plum-wine fruitiness.

Rich, sweet and clean throughout, with a chewy fullness and a tickle of acidity in the cup, an excellent balance of sweetness and bitterness in underlying structure, and a gentle fade toward chocolate in aftertaste.

A hint of cinnamon in the nose and cocoa in the finish, but the main pleasure here is the underlying structure: low-toned, rich, dry, balanced, and opulently, almost meatily, full-bodied.

Very low-toned, smooth, with a dry, fruity bittersweetness that, with slow drinking, settles toward chocolate. A slight, musty astringency shows up in the aftertaste, but the pleasantly pruny bittersweetness prevails.

Replete with earth, leather, and vaguely animal and forest notes. In structure leans more toward the bitter side of bittersweet, but blooms with chocolate opulence for a moment toward the finish.

A fine sweet, roasty nose with hints of spice and leather. In the cup the spice and animal notes deepen toward earth and mustiness. The relatively light roast allows a touch of acidity to brighten the cup, but fails to develop the underlying sweetness.

The rather aggressive dark roast simplifies the coffee, intensifying the bitter tones, dampening the sweet, and turning hints of chocolate toward spice. The aftertaste is attractively bittersweet but thin.

Crisp rather than bright, dry rather than acidy, bittersweet, cocoaish, elegant but limited. From a well-run farm in the relatively new growing region of Cerrado. Martinez Fine Coffees is known for its elegant packaging and respectful presentation of single-origin coffees.

The charred tones of the aggressive dark roast are relieved by a substantial sweetness and twisty, musty tones that publicists often label chocolate. They aren ‘t chocolate, but they can be pleasantly intriguing, as they are here. Beans are coated after roasting with acid-neutralizing agenMonsooned coffees have been exposed deliberately to moisture-laden monsoon winds in […]