LATEST REVIEWS
We have published thousands of coffee reviews and espresso reviews since 1997. The reviews below appear in reverse chronological order by review date. Older reviews may no longer accurately reflect current versions of the same coffee. To search for a specific roaster, origin or coffee use the Advanced Search Function.
A blend that in its completeness is a tribute to the blender's art. Solid without drama, displaying excellent range and a fine balance between sweetness and (I would guess) Indonesia pungency. Mouth-filling, close to creamy body, cleanly resounding aftertaste.
Lovely Yirgacheffe character: Floral, intense, transporting, as astonishing at first sip as the sudden scent of jasmine at dusk. What makes this particular Yirgacheffe an especially fine example of the origin is a touch of richness and power supporting the always remarkable perfumes.
A cup displaying all of the idiosyncrasy and complexity that makes Yemen such a fascinating origin. The aroma is funky, rich, pungent, all haloed by sweetness. The body is rich and buttery. The controversial, slightly composty overtones to the fruit that turn some palates off to Yemen are gently dominated here by the pungent taste of the roast, turning the fruit into a sensation as much tactile as olfactory, a sort of smoky, dry-toned richness.
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.
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 distinctively sweet, fruity Colombia. The fruit hovers on the edge of ferment, but to my palate remains safely on the lush but chocolate-cherryish side of the defect divide. The nose is perfectly clean: sweet, light, cocoa-like, the acidity nicely balanced between sweet and dry tones, the body medium to fullish.
Distinct lemony tones elevate the profile of this roundly satisfying but rather light-bodied Sumatra. The finish is lively, theaftertaste long and clean.
A coffee that rewards deliberation. The sweet nut tones that are the glory of many softer Latin-America coffees run luxuriantly through the profile from aroma to finish, taking on a distinct chocolate cast in the cup. A coffee whose richness reads more as resonance than heaviness.
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.
A splendid, high-toned cup, soaring but complex. Floral tones whisper at the top of the profile, wine-toned fruit fills out the middle; both float on a base of understated, toasty richness.
A suavely understated dark roast with a tickle of spice and chocolate at its heart. The pungent bite of the dark roast is muted and enveloped in sweetness, the finish rich and chocolate-toned.
Considerably more emphatic and complex than the Armeno aged Sumatra, apparently owing to the handling of the roast. The same hardness characteristic of many aged Sumatras of recent years is enveloped here with a soft, almost candy-like sweetness, modulating to a dry, tobaccoish finish. Sweet notes prevail in the aftertaste.
Not a trace of the twisty pungency of most Sumatras and Sulawesis here. Instead a nut-softening-to-vanilla nose, a clear, assertive floral-toned acidity, even a hint of smoke in the finish. With just a little more dimension and sweetness this coffee would be a knockout.
A slight pungency immediately melts in cinnamon-tending sweet spice. The solid (though not hard or heavy) profile retains a consistent character from nose through long, resonant aftertaste. The spice simplifies a bit as the cup cools.
An unexceptional but comfortable Pacific profile: pungent but not sharp, round, medium-bodied, with a hint of dry, wine-like fruit as the cup cools.
Another juxtaposition of hard-toned pungency and soft sweetness, although here the sweetness blooms with subtle floral notes in finish and aftertaste. Somewhere in the overlap of hardness and sweetness an additional little nuance emerges, a pleasant spicy tickle.
A clean Indonesia profile, meaning the pungency is soft rather than oppressively hard and the balancing sweetness is substantial and fresh. An ingratiating and straightforward coffee, though short on nuance.
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.
Another coffee in which the hard tones characteristic of many traditionally processed Indonesian coffees are precariously mellowed by an ingratiating sweetness. The combination of (perhaps musty) sharpness and sweetness hints at chocolate, particularly in the finish.
A hard pungency dominates the profile, but it's a rather rich, deep-throated hardness, with undertones of dry spice and a shimmer of sweetness. Possibly an over-aggressive roast burned off some of the sugars, imbalancing the cup.
