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
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 Devil’s in the Details: Bird-Friendly and Shade-Grown Coffees
Suppose the following: You look out your window and see a suddenly appearing flock of song birds. Or perhaps you hear their familiar, melodic burbling first, then see them. For many of us this is a precious moment, particularly so because we often know that these flitting, vulnerable creatures are only making a brief stopover before moving on until (hopefully) making a return next year. Those who
Botany and the Cup: The Bourbon Conundrum
We know that the species of the tree that produces our coffee profoundly influences how it tastes. And we know to the point of cliche that the arabica species produces all of the world's finest coffees. But what about the various botanical varieties of arabica, the coffee equivalents of wine grape varieties like the Cabernets, Chardonnays, Zinfandels, etc. that figure so prominently in the
Alternative Africas: Rwanda, Burundi, Tanzania
Coffees from the mountain ranges and plateaus that parallel the east coast of Africa are among the most distinctive in the world. The great coffees of Ethiopia and Kenya are by far the best known, but other African countries also produce distinguished Arabicas. For this month's article we review twelve coffees, six from Rwanda, four from Burundi, and two from Tanzania. Rwanda and Burundi
American Espresso Blends: Boutique and Bigger
Specialty espresso is currently in the throes of a creative explosion. I think of it as "post-Italian" espresso, a dynamic community of baristas, blender/roasters and motivated aficionados remaking espresso as a global connoisseur's beverage with passionately contested barista competitions, non-traditional brewing innovations, and freshly conceived blend designs. The goal of this month's
Papua New Guinea: Promise Only Partly Fulfilled
Three or four years ago I was looking out the window of a small airplane banking into a short (very short) grass airstrip serving a coffee-growing village of Papua New Guinea. Everything that makes the highlands of Papua New Guinea one of the most promising coffee growing regions in the world was spread out beneath me. Among all of the coffee terroirs of the world, the lush highland valleys of
San Francisco Bay Area Coffees: Dark and Beyond
Sorry, Seattle and all of those other places, but the American specialty coffee movement started in the San Francisco Bay Area. Of course small artisan coffee roasting companies were long in business before Alfred Peet opened his famous Vine Street store in Berkeley in 1966. Small, roaster-in-the-back-of-the-store coffee companies surviving from the early part of the 20th century doubtless helped
House Blends: Comfort Coffee and Beyond
House blend is a slippery term in coffee. It can suggest the straightforward and reliable, as in "house wine," and it can mean something unusual but local, not to be had elsewhere, as in "only at our house." Plus over the last decade it has taken on still another meaning. You find this last definition operative in the mid-market world of Starbucks and similar upscalish supermarket coffees. Here
Convenience First: Espresso Pods and Capsules
It is no surprise that over the last decade the more moneyed elements of the coffee industry have been trying to figure out how to simplify espresso brewing to the point that a consumer can produce a properly rich, smooth-tasting espresso shot without struggling through a complicated process that can be as daunting as upgrading to Vista or assembling a glass-fronted display case from Ikea. Given
Holiday Gift Coffees 2008: The Rare, the Exceptional, the Weird
Just to be clear, this is not a "10 best coffees of the year" article (or 50 best, or 150, or whatever number of bests an editor intends to dazzle us with). We've reported on many superb coffees over the past year, but by now most of them are a memory. We concentrated on coffees that can be bought now and enjoyed close to their peak in flavor and freshness. Our goal was to turn up coffees that
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
The Budget Aficionado: Top Value Single-Origin Coffees
When we made a decision last year to do an article aimed at finding great coffees at rock-bottom prices, we had no idea that the publication of this article would coincide with one of the most dismal times in recent American economic history. Our intention then was simply to find some bargain coffees to balance the more expensive selections that were beginning to dominate ratings at Coffee Review.
The Rainforest Alternative: Twelve plus One Rainforest-Certified Coffees
It has been well over ten years since the Sustainable Agriculture Network launched the Rainforest Alliance Certified program for coffee. Unlike the more widely publicized Fair-Trade certification, which is principally a socio-economically focused certification aimed mainly at helping democratically-run cooperatives of small-holding, peasant growers achieve better prices for their coffees,
Coffees of Kenya: Still Struggling, Still Great
I'm often asked for my opinion on the world's best coffee. Not a particularly informed question, but once it's clear that my questioner is asking for the name of a country rather than for the name of a farm or cooperative, I respond that the world's most reliably good coffee comes from Kenya. I hasten to offer additional caveats: great coffees come from all countries, Kenya is too acidy for
Readers’ Choice 2008: Hearty Coffee from the Heartlands
A Readers' Choice article at Coffee Review always provides an interesting pretext for speculation about specialty coffee drinkers' latest tastes and preferences. The following would hardly make it through an academic review process, but here are some observations based on our 2008 sampling of reader nominated coffees (this speculation has a margin of error of somewhere around 100%). 1) Current
Single-Origin Espressos 2008
Those new to espresso connoisseurship may be surprised to learn that producing this dense, aromatic beverage from coffee of a single origin rather than from a blend of coffees from different origins is a mildly controversial practice. Traditionalists argue that the espresso system extracts flavor-bearing components from coffee so efficiently that a single coffee from a single origin is not
“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" -
Special Reserve is Dead. Long Live Special Reserve.
Two or three years ago, offering small, distinctive lots of coffee on a temporary, seasonal basis and calling them "special reserve" or "limited edition" appeared to be one of the most promising trends in specialty coffee. These offerings proposed to wean coffee drinkers from expecting the same kind of consistency in single-origin coffees as they might expect from brands of beer or soft drinks:
Decaffeinated Single-Origins: A Slow Tour with Limited Stops
How deep a flavor rut are coffee drinkers stuck in if they give up caffeine? Are they eternally condemned to token decaf blends at the end of the counter, or can they tour the world by cup, or try to save it by cup, like their caffeine-consuming colleagues? Based on this month's cupping of decaffeinated single-origin coffees, options are rather limited when you travel by decaf. A couple of
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
