It's one of those does-the-emperor-have-no-clothes questions. When we fork out nine or ten dollars per pound for specialty coffee are we getting something clearly better in the cup than the granulated brown stuff in cans that sells for several dollars less? The question becomes even more interesting when we consider how the line between "specialty" and "commercial" coffee has blurred in recent
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.
The Dark-Roast Controversy
In a book about coffee published in 1853 the following sentence appears: "For the New England trade a light roast is required, and for Western, a dark, or pretty full roast." Of course people in those days didn't cross the country for weekend business trips, and if anyone used the term bicoastal it doubtless described someone who commuted between west and east Manhattan. Consequently we don't
Straight Coffees from Africa
A good East African coffee has the disconcerting capacity to make coffees from other parts of the world taste rather tame. The robust wininess of a Kenya or the startling floral tones of an Ethiopian Yirgacheffe are among the grand gestures of coffee. Few East African coffees can be accused of timidity. But what do consumers actually taste when they get their bag of Kenya, Ethiopia, or Zimbabwe
House Blends
What do people get when they call a coffee retailer, confused, and ask for a good blend, something to introduce them to the world of specialty coffee? We called, and this February's coffee reviews describe what we got: a dozen interesting and rather different blends from twelve roaster-retailers. In all cases, the blend we tasted was the one recommended by the person who took the order. The
