Seattle Reviews

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.

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.

Woody, dominated by a rather thin, roasty bitterness. Attenuated floral notes play at the top of the profile, dry cocoa-toned fruit toward the middle, but a rather shallow roast taste dominates.

Seductively sweet, delicate, gently acidy. The tartly sweet fruit tones suggest raisins or dates. Rather light-bodied, but appropriately so given the general delicacy of the profile.

A classic American breakfast coffee: intensely and brightly acidy but juicily sweet, deeply dimensioned, with meadowy hints of flowers that deepen toward fruit in the finish. As the finish fades, we 're left again with a shimmer of flowers.

When hot, understated but pleasantly sweet, with a hint of spicy fruit complicating the mildly burned, pungent tones. The aftertaste is unyieldingly bitter, however, and when the cup cools the coffee lands on the palate with a flat, unrelieved, carbon-toned thud.

A fresh citrusy sharpness complicates the dark-roast bittersweetness. The bitter tones intensify in finish, but never completely master the sweetness, which persists pleasantly through aftertaste.

A deep, resonant pungency envelops the Kenya dry wine and tart berry tones, giving them a sexy fresh-sweat twist. This odd, rough-yet-smooth pungency is a Peet's trade mark, and only occasionally found in coffees dark-roasted by competitors. Here it supports without obliterating the citrus and berry freshness of the Kenya.

Rich Kenya wine tones dominate, buoyed by shimmers of citrus and berry. A complex sweetness blooms as the cup cools and the dry wine tones soften. A fine coffee, although I missed the echoing dimension of the very best Kenyas.

Under the taste of the darkish roast style earthy, but not a sweet or inviting earth. A bit hard (no pun), without depth, bounce or resonance. A tobaccoey, salty tickle in the finish.

A wonderful nose, full of bittersweet chocolate and deep vanilla tones, but disappointing in the cup: a clean, dry, but rather hard pungency bullies nuance into submission. A hint of carbon, little sweetness.

A clean, direct dark-roast profile. The dominant pungency is free of carbon and dances rather lightly on the palate, with some spicy overtones and space for them to echo.

Liveliest and most resonant of the dark-roast samples in the cupping: Less overbearingly pungent, sweeter, with a touch of vanilla in cup as well as aroma. The entire profile deepens, smooths, and balances in the finish.

Only a touch of sweetness survives to balance the sharp tones of a very dark roast, but the sharpness is complicated (perhaps rounded) by chocolaty, pruny tones. The aroma is crisp, alive, even elegant, but the profile tends to simplify in the cup and trail off into dimensionless astringency in the aftertaste. At best medium body. Turns sweet and smooth in milk but remains underpowered.

In the demitasse this blend is complexly crisp and pungent; richly dry chocolate notes are supported by an understated sweetness. Perhaps the heavy, smoothly balanced body accounts for the splendid impact this coffee makes in milk. The dairy relaxes the crisp chocolate notes and the coffee richly suffuses the milk rather than penetrating it.

This coffee gets better as it goes, probably owing to its heavy body. The dark tones of the aroma modulate with increasing power through the cup to a complex finish.