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Tasting Reports – Most Recent

Coffee Review has published more than 250 monthly coffee tasting reports since February 1997. The most recent tasting reports appear below in reverse chronological order. You may narrow your search by category from the main navigation drop-downs or 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.

Tasting Report: Coffees from Papua New Guinea, Timor and Java

1999 Papua New Guineas, Timors, and a Lone Java

An assortment of intrigues and questions animate this month's panel cupping of coffees from the eastern islands of the Malay Archipelago: Papua New Guinea, Timor, and Java. Among those questions and intrigues: Papua New Guinea estate-grown coffees are among the up-and-coming challengers in the world of fine coffee. How good are the best estate-grown Papua New Guineas? Can they match the drama

February 1, 2000
Tasting Report | Reviews

Shopping Carts

Supermarket Coffees

Twenty years ago the line was clear between specialty coffees and "commercial" coffees. Specialty coffees were sold whole-bean, freshly roasted, in stores that offered their customers a wide range of choice in roast style and origin. Commercial coffees were represented by the almost identical contents of cans lined up like fat little percolator-ready soldiers on supermarket shelves. Obviously,

January 1, 2000
Tasting Report | Reviews

Submission window changed for July tasting report

Coffees of the Millennium

Coffees of the millennium may sound grandiose (what's next, skateboards of the millennium?), but the more I considered the idea the more persuasive and interesting it became. After all, coffee's profound appeal to the human palate and nervous system literally helped constitute the modern world. As one of the world's most actively traded commodities (second in value behind oil), coffee has been a

December 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Holiday Coffees

The word holiday attached to a coffee presumes one of two related functions: Either you drink it at your celebrations or give it to someone else to drink at their celebrations. Roasted coffee is not something you save for next year. Coffee is an existentially authentic gift; it lives in the now. The eleven coffees sent to us by eight roasters fall into two further categories: special

November 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Tasting Report: Ethiopia Coffees

Wet-Processed Ethiopia Coffees

An interesting trivia question to ask people is where coffee originated. Virtually everyone looks confused, and, when pressed, usually tries a Latin-American country: Colombia, say, or Brazil. Of course, Coffee arabica, the species that produces all fine coffees, originated in the highland forests of Ethiopia, in the Horn of Africa. The arabica tree, which still grows wild in the middle tier of

October 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Single Store Roasters

Single-Store Roasters

Specialty coffee started with a single-store roaster. Or maybe three or four. Alfred Peet's famous Vine Street store in Berkeley had a little Royal roaster in back of the counter when I first visited it in 1970, the pipe rising precariously (and crookedly, if I remember rightly) toward the high ceiling. Across the Bay in San Francisco Freed Teller & Freed had been roasting in the back room of

September 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Colombia Map

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

August 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Hillside of Coffee in Guatemala

New Crop Guatemala Coffees

Guatemala is rivaled only by Kenya as coffee insiders' favorite origin. The terrible ravages of decades of brutal civil war have ironically helped preserve that position, since those years of disorder discouraged the technification of Guatemala coffee, meaning the replacement of heirloom, shade-grown varieties of Coffea arabica with hybrid, full-sun varieties heavily dependent on chemical

July 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Dark roasted coffee beans

Extreme and Not-So-Extreme Dark Roasts

I often am accused of "not liking" dark-roasted coffee. Whereupon I try to explain that what I don't like are bad dark roasts: thin-bodied, burned dark roasts. Tactfully developed dark roasts, those in which the sugars have been caramelized rather than burned and in which enough fat survives to smooth the cup, are fine with me. And if some nuance also survives, or better yet, transforms in some

June 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Coffee Tasting Report: A Dozen Keepers

A Dozen Keepers

The twelve coffees reviewed here represent a sort of best-of-category selection of coffees that have made their way to my table over the last couple of months. The four Hawaii coffees are new offerings from this past winter's 1998/99 crop, as is the Jamaica Blue Mountain. The three blends are either new to everyone (The Roasterie's Fifth Anniversary Blend) or new to me. The Allegro Yemen, the

May 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Tasting Report: Coffees from Papua New Guinea, Timor and Java

Indonesias and Papua New Guineas

Sumatra probably became America's favorite Indonesia coffee because in the early days of specialty coffee it seemed the most distinctive origin from the region: heavier and richer than Java, twistier and more complex than Papua New Guinea, a bit more consistent and accessible than similar coffees from Sulawesi. And back then, East Timor, the source of two of the Indonesia coffees in this month's

April 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Flag Of Kenya

Kenyas and Other East Africas

Specialty coffee professionals tend to be protective of Kenya. For one thing, it remains the world's single most consistent source of superlative coffee. And Kenya is superlative in the particular ways American specialty professionals define superlative: alive with the dry, vibrant sensation called acidity, fruity without cloying sentiment, big and resonant.Furthermore, most specialty folks admire

March 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

New Crop Sumatra Coffees

Back in 1975, when I wrote my first book on coffee, Sumatras were a revelation: long, tawny-colored beans with a wonderful deep-toned, bass-tickling richness. The cup was heavy, but alive with fruit and smoke. The bags came marked with sonorous names like Mandheling and Lintong. It was easy to project Conradian into those names and that dark luxuriousness. Those archetypal Sumatras I first

February 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

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

January 1, 1999
Tasting Report | Reviews

Gift box image

Holiday Gift Coffees

Holiday coffees pose a challenge to both buyer and seller. Coffee is one of the great habitual, everyday luxuries. Holiday gifts, on the other hand, are supposed to be exceptional, not habitual, and not everyday. That conflict leaves roasters scrambling to find plausible ways to cash in on the holiday buying debauch with coffees that appear unique to the season, while consumers try to figure out

December 1, 1998
Tasting Report | Reviews

Single-Origin Organic Coffees

The specialty coffee business was founded on a sort of practical idealism. The great iconoclastic tradition of the coffee house, coffee's myth-embellished history as the beverage of the people, the anti-corporate stance of the early specialty coffee culture, all seemed to attract leaders who were interested in making a difference as well as in making a living. Some years ago, however, a couple

November 1, 1998
Tasting Report | Reviews

Tasting Report: Best Sellers

Best Sellers

The coffees that sell best in the American specialty marketplace often are not the same coffees that American specialty coffee professionals (and reviewers) would like to see sell the best. It occurred to me to ask a selection of regional roasters for the coffees their customers prefer, as opposed to the coffees they prefer as professionals. Coffee Review staff members approached six

October 1, 1998
Tasting Report | Reviews

Twelve Hits from ’98

I've just finished washing the cups and brushing out the grinder after cupping about 180 coffees (including 35 or so espressos) from twenty distinguished American specialty roaster-retailers. The reason for all the cupping is explained elsewhere in this issue. It seems worthwhile, however, to report on a little of what I learned (or think I learned) during my marathon cupping. (The twelve

September 1, 1998
Tasting Report | Reviews

Map of the Caribbean

Caribbean Coffees

However closely Caribbean coffees resemble one another in their full, rounded coastal flavor profiles, their individual stories are quite different. The Blue Mountain coffees of Jamaica are among the world's most expensive, sought after by price-is-no-object romantics, while resented by many coffee professionals for their high price. The Yauco coffees of Puerto Rico represent a successful revival

July 1, 1998
Tasting Report | Reviews

Costa Rican Coffee Farm

Costa Rican Coffees

Costa Rica is one of those classic coffee origins that is respected but generally not fawned over. Although Costa Rica produces a variety of coffees, those that reach American specialty coffee menus typically are high-grown "Strictly Hard Bean" (SHB) coffees from growing regions near the capital of San Jose in the west-central part of the country. At best SHB coffees are distinctive in a way that

June 1, 1998
Tasting Report | Reviews

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Shop for top-rated coffees at Durango Coffee Company

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Shop for top-rated coffees at Kakalove in Taiwan

Shop for top-rated coffees at GoCoffeeGo

Shop for 93-point Yemen coffee at Baba Java

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