• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Coffee Review

The World's Leading Coffee Guide

Advanced Search

Shop for Award-Winning 100% Kona Coffees at Hula Daddy

  • Reviews
    • Latest Reviews
    • Top-Rated (94+)
    • Espressos
    • Best Values
    • Taiwan Coffees – 台灣送評的咖啡豆
    • Top 30 Coffees of 2020
    • Top 30 – Past Rankings
    • Pods and Capsules
    • Reviews by U.S. City
    • Advanced Search
  • Reports
    • Latest Reports
    • Africa
    • Americas
    • Asia-Pacific
    • Espressos
    • Annual Top 30
    • Processing Method
    • Social/Environmental
    • Tree Variety
    • Blends
  • Equipment
    • The New Fellow Ode Brew Grinder
    • Mid-Range Burr Coffee Grinders
    • Electric Gooseneck Kettles
    • Interpreting Equipment Ratings
  • Journal
    • The Year 2020 in Coffee
  • About
    • Our Story
    • Kenneth Davids
    • Our Team
    • Our Advertisers
    • Our Sponsors
    • Learn
      • Interpreting Coffee Reviews
      • Reference
      • Glossary
    • Contact Us
  • Trade
    • 2021 Editorial Calendar
    • Becoming an Advertiser
    • Campaign Package Deals
    • Getting Coffees Reviewed
    • Quoting Reviews
    • Award Certificates
    • Media Kit
  • 中文 – Chinese
    • 台灣送評的咖啡豆
    • 如何將您的咖啡送評
    • “行銷攻略” 促銷活動
  • Members
    • WHY BECOME A MEMBER?
    • Member Benefits
    • Our Sponsors
    • Programs and Initiatives
    • Member Support

Fragrance and Weight: Winter Coffees from the Pacific

December 5, 2003 by Kenneth Davids

The coffees reviewed this month all offer the sort of heartily complex cup that suggests fires, throws, and warm, rich kitchen recoveries from the elements (or, in warmer climates, recoveries from holiday traffic jams). And most originate on the gigantic islands of southeast Asia: Sumatra, Sulawesi (Celebes), Timor and New Guinea. They are an altogether rather exceptional group of coffees, all comfortable owing to their low acidity but consoling in richness and range of nuance.

For those hazy on their southeast Asia geography, the sources for most of these coffees are very large islands located in the great crescent of islands stretching from the tip of Malaysia eastward to north of Australia. Sumatra (the easternmost of these islands) and Sulawesi are part of Indonesia; East Timor is now independent, and Papua New Guinea occupies the eastern half of the mammoth island of New Guinea.

The Sumatra-Sulawesi Syndrome

Sumatra and Sulawesi are most famous for their peasant-processed coffees that, owing to a peculiar approach to fruit removal and drying (see Why Sumatra Coffees Taste the Way They Do), acquire low-toned fruit and musty or mildewed tones that can bestow nuance on the cup ranging from leather through pipe tobacco to earth to mushrooms to a sort of herby chocolate. East Timor coffees share these shifty characteristics, though in subtler and less intense ways than traditional Sulawesis, which are without a doubt the most eccentric tasting of the world’s coffees. Some peasant-processed Papua New Guineas may share a tickle of the creative processing taints that mark the preceding three origins, but Papua New Guineas in general tend to be melodic, fragrant coffees whose surprises are subtler and less likely to shock a conventional palate.

Risking an 89 on a Sulawesi

I have stuck my neck out in this review and gave a relatively high rating (89) to one rather outrageously wild tasting Sulawesi from the Roasterie. To me, this coffee fulfilled the criteria for a fine traditional Sulawesi: full and sweetly robust rather than stingy and thin, with the pronounced musty/mildew tones reading as complexly (if wildly) nuanced rather than sharp and hard. Given that peaty, almost phenolic single-malt scotches are admired in the world of specialty beverages, it seems to me that such Sulawesis deserve similar admiration.

Sweet New Guineas

On the other hand, the Papua New Guinea reviewed here are quite easy to admire using conventional criteria. These are coffees that share the virtues of certain softer Central America coffees, with their low-key, vibrant acidity and natural sweetness. But the complex flavor notes displayed by Papua New Guineas are often surprising and pleasingly unpredictable, ranging from the sweet grapefruit notes so prominent in some high-grown plantation Papua New Guineas to the apple, leather and chocolate tones prominent in those reviewed here.

Of the four origins represented in this review, the Papua New Guineas as a group attracted the highest ratings, which supports what many of us know already; that this origin, barely recognized among specialty coffee consumers, is among the world’s finest.

Blends and Complexity

Finally, we reviewed two blends that share the low-toned, hearty complexity of this month’s single-origin coffees. The backbone of the Nakatosh blend comes from coffees with a musty, nutty nuance, perhaps Sumatras, and the delicately rich, bittersweet Celebration Caffe from Allegro Coffee clearly depends in part on a component of fine Sumatras for its distinction.

Nevertheless, when placed in the context of single-origin coffees as intricately nuanced as the best of those reviewed here, an argument for the superior complexity of blends is difficult to sustain. As I cupped some of these samples I found myself repeatedly convinced that I was dealing with a blend, only to discover after the cupping that the range of sensation that intrigued me came from a single origin, the product simply of the interaction of nature and the impact of traditional methods of fruit removal and drying.

2003 The Coffee Review. All rights reserved.

Read Reviews


Filed Under: Tasting Reports

About the Author: Kenneth Davids

Kenneth Davids is a coffee expert, author and co-founder of Coffee Review. He has been involved with coffee since the early 1970s and has published three books on coffee, including the influential Home Roasting: Romance and Revival, now in its second edition, and Coffee: A Guide to Buying, Brewing and Enjoying, which has sold nearly 250,000 copies over five editions. His workshops and seminars on coffee sourcing, evaluation and communication have been featured at professional coffee meetings on six continents.

Primary Sidebar

Receive 30% Off First Order at Trade Coffee

Shop for Top-rated coffees at Barrington Coffee Roasters

Shop at Rhetoric Coffee

Shop for top-rated coffees at Amavida Coffee Roasters

Shop for top-rated coffees at Durango Coffee Company

Shop for top-rated coffees at Kakalove in Taiwan

Dragonfly Banner - 300x250

Shop for top-rated coffees at Paradise Roasters

Shop for No. 15 Coffee of 2020 at Hala Tree Kona Coffee

Shop for 100% Hawiian Coffee at Big Island Coffee Roasters

Shop for top-rated coffees at GoCoffeeGo

Become an advertiser

Klatch Colombia El Paraiso

Get Coffees Reviewed

Shop for top-rated coffees at Paradise Roasters

Shop for Kona peaberry at Big Island Coffee Roasters

Connect with Us

Sign Up for Our Free E-Newsletter

Enter your email address below to receive our free e-mail newsletter
  • Coffee Reviews
  • Tasting Reports
  • Reference
  • Glossary
  • Please Support Our Advertisers
  • Contact Us
  • Journal
  • Kenneth Davids
  • Interpreting Coffee Reviews
  • Roast Definitions
  • Caveats about Coffee Ratings
  • Editorial Calendar
  • Getting Coffees Reviewed
  • Advertising Opportunities
  • Quoting Reviews
  • Copyright
  • Terms of Use
  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Security

Copyright © 2021 Coffee Review. All Rights Reserved.