This month's reviews consider coffees from two famous island growing regions -- Kona and the Blue Mountains of Jamaica -- together with a handful of coffees from less famous island origins: Puerto Rico, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, plus a scattering of non-Kona Hawaii coffees. The conclusions, rather sadly, are predictable for coffee insiders but perhaps a surprise for more casual coffee
Tasting Reports – Americas
Coffee Review has published more than 250 monthly coffee tasting reports since February 1997. The tasting reports below -- focusing on coffees from Central America, South America, and Hawaii -- appear in reverse chronological order. You may refine your search by using the key word search feature that appears in the page header. The content in tasting reports and associated reviews was correct at the time of publication but may not remain accurate over time.
Half Way to Napa? Panamas 2009
The compact coffee growing region of western Panama, rising on the slopes of the 11,300-foot Volcan Baru, is in many respects ideally configured to develop into one of the world's coffee versions of Napa Valley. The region is compact, ideal for coffee growing, and almost all of the production is performed by classic medium-sized, family-owned farms of the kind that best equate with the wine idea
Unassuming Beauty: Coffees of El Salvador and Honduras
Leaders of El Salvador's growing specialty coffee sector are quick to point out what they feel are the particular strengths of their origin. First, large plantings of coffee varieties particularly respected for their flavor and character, and second, generally impeccable preparation of those varieties. This month's cupping of nearly thirty El Salvador coffees from twenty-two American specialty
“S” as in Sexy: New Specialty Offerings from Brazil
The fact that at least half of the American roasters submitting coffees for this month's cupping spelled Brazil with an "s" - the Portuguese-Brazilian spelling - may be symptomatic of what has happened of late to the reputation of high-end coffees from that country. The spelling implies that these are not your old-fashioned, low-grown, stolid Brazils of years past, but Brasils with an "s" -
Juan Valdez’s Progeny: Micro-Lot and Other Fine Colombias
This month's cupping of coffees from Colombia confirms that this giant among coffee producers has successfully turned at least a portion of its industry from supplier of immense quantities of good-but-not-great generic "100% Colombian" coffee to prized source of smaller (sometimes tiny) lots of subtly distinctive specialty coffees. Handsome symbol Juan Valdez and his photogenic mule are being
2007 Prize-Winning Coffees from Central America and Colombia
This month we review ten prize winners from green coffee competitions held this year in Central American countries and in Colombia. These competitions, "during which a jury of international cuppers spends several well-caffeinated days slurping, spitting and obsessing over a gradually narrowing group of fine coffees from a given growing country," to quote my own earlier article on the subject (hey,
Cupping the Andes: Southern Colombia, Bolivia and Peru
Coffee growing regions strung along the rugged Andes from central Colombia south through Peru have much in common: high growing altitudes; a reliance on sturdy, simple varieties of arabica like typica and caturra; small-holding farmers whose struggle to produce fine coffee is challenged by daunting transportation problems and sporadic social and political conflict. As in so many other places in
Hawaiian Coffees 2006: Not This Year
Disappointment implies history. We can only be disappointed if past successes make us expect more good things than actually come our way in the present. Such is the case with Coffee Review's latest revisiting of Hawaiian coffees. First disappointment: A rather lackluster collection of coffees from the famous Kona growing region, with only one of the twenty-two 100% Kona samples we collected
Colombia Runs the Table: Twelve at Ninety
A couple of weeks ago I was leading a coffee tasting for consumers, and I fielded a typical consumer question. What about Colombian coffee? Was it the - (hesitation, visions of Juan Valdez dancing in the head) - best in the world? Before this month's cupping, I would have confidently replied: No, of course not. Colombia gives us some excellent, classic, high-grown Latin American coffees, but
Aromatic Neighbors: Current Crop Panamas and Costa Ricas
If Costa Rica is one of the world's best-known coffee origins, Panama may be one of the more obscure. Nevertheless, these two coffee neighbors share a border, and the growing region for fine Panama coffee is centered only twenty miles or so from the Costa Rica border on the slopes of Volcan Baru. Both origins are respected for quality, although neither is known for a particularly distinctive cup,
Soft and Sweet: Brazil Specialty Coffees
Brazil is a coffee country in transition. Still the world's largest producer of coffee - but now the world's second largest consumer of coffee as well. Still the home of vast patios filled with coffee fruit carelessly stripped from trees and often mildewing as it dries, but also an emerging producer of some of the world's most fastidiously prepared specialty coffees. Brazil still produces a
The El Salvador and Honduras Adventure
For those coffee adventurers who take more pleasure in defining the unknown than in confirming the known, the coffees of El Salvador and Honduras offer intriguing opportunity. These two origins are the last of the six Spanish-speaking Central American countries to establish clear identities in the world of specialty coffee, yet both produce plenty of coffee, and, if this month's cupping is any
Costa Rica Coffees
Three issues weave their way through this report of my collaborative June cupping of Costa Rica coffees with leading coffee buyer and writer Kevin Knox. The first: Based on our limited sampling, what kind of coffee experience are this year's Costa Ricas likely to deliver to the consumer? The second: Is the cupper wearing his new clothes? How much agreement in language and taste can we expect
Current Crop Brazils
Brazil is coming up in the world of specialty coffee. It probably always was up in Europe, where Brazil's finest coffees, sweetly rounded and low in acidity, anchored the continent's leading blends. In the United States, however, Brazil was mainly known for producing vast volumes of cheap, mass-processed arabica coffees that found their nameless way into supermarket cans and bottles. Some
Konas and Other Hawaiis
Kona coffee, grown on a narrow band of hard-scrabble lava terrain that meanders along the mountainside above the resort complexes and splendid western coastline of the Big Island of Hawaii, is a singular coffee origin in many respects. A combination of demand and scarcity have made one of the worlds most expensive coffees. It is a favorite among American and Japanese consumers, who associate it
Mexico, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras
When we travel the symbolic roads of specialty coffee south through Mexico and Central America, two origins straddle those roads like overachieving giants: Guatemala and Costa Rica. The other coffee origins of the region - Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama - make far less frequent appearances on specialty menus, although Mexico and Nicaragua in particular supply several
Prize-Winning Panamas
Soft and sweet? Or bland and flat? Balanced versus boring? Subtle versus inconsequential? Imagine similar sets of adjectives, and you have the delicate inner struggle that characterized this month's cupping of current-crop coffees from Panama. Panama is a rising star, an up-and-coming contender, among Central America coffee origins. All premium Panama coffees are produced on large family-owned
Central America Coffees
Again and again while writing the reviews of this splendid assortment of Central America coffees I found myself attempting to characterize the classic American cup, the cup that American supermarket blends aspire to, but never come close to fulfilling. It is a dry, bright, acidy cup, yet sweet and round, transparently free of earth or ferment, yet alive with high-toned, subtle nuance: nut and
Colombia Coffees
Colombia is the paradox of specialty coffee. Its 100% Colombia campaign, initiated decades ago and still rolling, is a model of successful coffee organization, institutional persistence, and savvy marketing. Colombia remains the world's only premium single origin able to compete successfully in the world of commercial roast-and-ground canned coffee. And the Colombia Federation of Coffee Growers is
Brazil and Brazils
Evaluating coffees apart from the people who grow them is sometimes difficult. It becomes particularly difficult when the people in question are as charming and lavishly hospitable as the Brazilian growers whom I visited last month. I ate very well, shared much generous laughter, and here and there cupped some very impressive coffees. I was moving in the learned wake of George Howell, whom some
