Boston Reviews

An extraordinary coffee in the earth and fruit style of traditional Indonesias. In the aroma moist leaves turning toward fresh earth, together with buttery, candyish top notes. In the cup full-bodied, with pungent, moist earth tones and crisp, low-acid fruit notes suggesting pear and cherry. The pungent tones smooth out in a sweetly rich finish.

Elegantly high-toned aroma: lemon, peach, berry, a delicate hint of walnut. In the cup medium in body but silky in mouthfeel, with crisply sweet, delicately acidy dry berry and Meyer lemon notes. The finish hovers on the edge of astringency but stays on the rich, bracing side of the sensation.

This light-to-medium-roasted coffee is gently acidy with a floral and high-toned fruit character that quite simply represents the fresh, delicate taste of the coffee flower and fruit itself, carried with a roastmaster's tact from coffee to cup. The downside of this respectful roast is a slight, residual vegetal or tea-like character that some palates will find elegant and refreshing and others, well, too tea-like.

Deep aroma with dry floral and tart berry and chocolate notes. Sweetly high-toned and acidy in the cup, delicately rich, hints of dry berry, sweet herb, flowers. Lightly astringent but refreshing finish.

Extraordinary aroma: high-toned, delicate but intense, lilac and a chocolaty lemon. The chocolate-lemon and floral notes carry into the cup, but are backgrounded by a sweet but intense acidity. Clean, sweet finish.

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.

Delicately rich in aroma and cup. The clean, elegant fruit suggests peach in the aroma and cherry in the cup, with a little swoon toward chocolate. The refined acidity rounds and sweetens beautifully as the cup cools, deepening toward wine.

Bright but sweet, lyrically and complexly high-toned. Lemon, cherry, black currant in the aroma. In the cup cherry, tart berries, sweet grapefruit, even a rounding hint of milk chocolate.

In the small cup deeply sweet, with a heavy, buttery mouthfeel and carnal fruit tones: papaya, mango, bittersweet chocolate. Exceptional in milk: very sweet with chocolate-toned fruit of almost lyric lift and complexity balanced by a dry, authoritative finish.

Everything happens in the higher registers here, and a lot does. A wonderful, dry/sweet complex, almost effervescent, lifts the heart of this light, bright coffee. An amazing range of grace notes shimmer in the higher registers: dry chocolate, herb, even a suggestion of vanilla in the finish. I had to strain to find a hint of Red Sea gaminess amid all the aromatic action; it may have shown up in the long, subtly complex aftertaste. Hard to believe so much complexity made it through the decaffeination process. Perhaps a good Yemen coffee is so intense that the muting effect of decaffeination actually helps by mellowing it a bit.