Decent enough in the aroma: sweetly pungent, balanced, intensely roasty with a twist of slightly charred cedar. In the cup sweet and pungent, but the charred cedar notes turn to charred board notes, expressionless and woody. A vague hint of fruit at the top of the profile. I hope the nominating reader tasted a better sample of the Verona than this one.
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We found 102 reviews that match your search for starbucks. Coffees are listed in reverse chronological order by review date. Older reviews may no longer accurately reflect current versions of the same coffee.
This particular sample of Original Blend exhibited an almost academically thorough anthology of coffee taints and shadow defects. Some cups were flat and musty, others seemed additionally green and astringent, and some were rich with a rather pleasant apricot-toned sweet ferment (perhaps what nominating reader Des Cabigan cited as "a sniff of oranges"). But not a single cup appeared on the table without some taint or other. Presumably the several nominating readers based their emails on a better iteration of the Original Blend than this one, something closer to the version to which I gave an 87 rating in 2002.
A thoroughly dispirited coffee, with little sweetness and limited nuance aside from hints of nondescript fruit and a sort of vegetal, slightly charred cocoa. This particular sample appears to consist of green coffees of ordinary to poor quality that were poorly roasted to boot. Presumably nominating reader C. Dowling got luckier than I did when he was inspired to nominate this blend as a "mellow ... all-around coffee."
Willem: "Blossom-like, peppery aroma, just like the roses from my 50+year-old rose tree! Mild sweet flavor with lingering floral aftertaste. Excellent caramel complexity with milk. I loved it." (92) What for Willem was peppery and blossom-like, for Ken was spicy and fruity in the aroma and smokily fruity in the small cup. Ken wanted more sweetness in the demitasse but in milk praised this blend as "sweet, crisp and cherry-like edging toward chocolate." (89).
Both Willem and Ken found this blend satisfying, though not exciting. Willem: "elegant floral aroma. Overall: smooth and soft with pleasantly lingering aftertaste. Rich caramel notes in milk." (87) Ken: "Complex in a narrow range: smoky, sweet fruit in the aroma, smoky and spicy in the demitasse. Caramelly and sweet though a bit shallow in milk." (86)
Willem found this sample of the Starbucks staple blend "balanced throughout with no major high [positive] or low [negative] notes in aroma, flavor and aftertaste. [In the demitasse] some sweetness with a bitter end note. With milk, sweet, spicy, [with] a mild, pungent aftertaste." (85) Ken was less impressed. For him the aroma was "smoky, sweet and subdued," the body lean, the small cup "smoky and simple." He was most taken with this ubiquitous blend's impact in milk: "sweetens and rounds, prune fruit softens toward chocolate in the finish." (83)
This well-known blend, which attracted high ratings in previous Coffee Review tastings, mildly disappointed in this incarnation (Willem 84, Ken 84). Aroma fared well enough. For Willem it was "elegant, complex[ly] floral," for Ken "sweet, rich, with papaya and perhaps mint." Both found the small cup imbalanced, however. Willem described it as "acidy [and] spicy," Ken as "heavily pungent with aromatic wood notes." This imbalance predictably softened in milk: "Much better with milk than without" Willem concluded, although Ken felt the presence in milk was substantial but "rather ponderous with a woody finish."
A delicate cup with impressive complexity: Lemon, smoky spice and milk chocolate notes carry with subtle variation from aroma through finish. In the cup, shows a fine balance of sweet acidity and a subtle roastiness, the roast making itself felt mainly in the smoky spice. The five cups I sampled displayed some unevenness; otherwise I would rate this silky, aromatic blend even higher.
Quietly complex aroma: sweet, discreetly roasty, with suggestions of leather, chocolate, apricot, perhaps pear. In the cup gentle, low-key, richly fruity with a lush apricot that flirts with chocolate.
A gently roasty, light-bodied blend: sweet, balanced, with fresh leather, grapefruit and sweet herb notes, lemon thyme perhaps. Slightly astringent in the finish.
Straightforward, simple but satisfying dark-roast: cleanly roasty, pleasantly smoky but without burned or excessive bitterness. In cup and finish the roastiness takes on a toasty, campfire chocolate character.
The aroma is flat and thin. In the cup sweetly but thinly roasty, on the edge of burned, with a lean mouthfeel. Nearly salvaged by pleasantly delicate fruit notes - pear perhaps.
Pungently roasty with cantaloupe notes in the aroma. In the cup softens nicely, allowing some sweet lemon and grapefruit notes to glisten in the smooth, rather delicate roastiness. Sweet but gently astringent finish.
Either the green coffee was not up to the dark roast style, or the roast was conducted too aggressively: the roast dominates, producing a pungent and bitterly monotoned cup, with little to no nuance. The cup rounds and softens a bit as it cools, turning tenuously bittersweet.
Reader "Siehata" nominated a "morning blend" from Seattle's Best Coffee,testifying that SBC "has been a favorite of mine for years. Better than Millstone or even theover-priced burnt Starbucks." I couldn't find a Seattle's Best morning blend, so I pickedSaturday's Blend, figuring that Saturdays have mornings, maybe better mornings than the otherdays of the week. I found it crisply roasty (though most definitely not burned), with pleasantlydry, bittersweet chocolate tones. For me it hit the sweet spot of dark roasted coffees, butdisplayed a limited range of aromatics and a lean body. Perhaps it had sat in its bag too long.
The reader who nominated this coffee rated it an 85 -- 89, citing its "great aroma and floral hints," and adding that it is "a great breakfast coffee." I'd agree, though the sample I cupped may have sat around in its elegant bag too long. It belongs to the authoritative rather than the delicate style of Panama: intensely acidy, yet still displaying the bright, high-toned sweet nut, floral and fruit notes characteristic of this underappreciated origin. I felt the profile suffered from bitterness, however, which turned the acidity a bit too assertive for many coffee drinkers.
"Auburnbulldog" gives this venerable grocery store coffee from Louisiana a 90 to 94 rating "because for a non-specialty coffee it is by far the best. I cringe when I go from Community to Starbucks." I found it a fine example of a (non-chicory) New Orleans-style blend: roundly low-acid coffees with a musty or mildewy edge (probably mainly Brazils) turned malty and rich by the moderately dark roast.
A big, simple, acidy coffee only partly tamed by the darkish roast. The result is a bit of a hybrid: medium-bodied, roasty but acidy, reasonably sweet, but with only a hint of Antigua-style nuance, some fruit perhaps. The finish is slightly astringent, always a danger when an acidy coffee is brought to a darkish roast. The nominating reader Carolina Facciani of Redondo Beach, California rates the Starbucks Guatemala she or he tasted a 95 to 100, declaring it "one of the best tasting coffees I've had next to Costa Rica's coffees." The big acidity and relative lack of nuance does make this coffee resemble high-grown Costa Ricas.
"Light-bodied with an almost rioy flavor. Quakers, soft, wild-looking. Could have been better if roasted a little darker?" (78). Rioy is a hard, medicinal flavor taken on by some dry-processed coffees during the drying. Quakers are beans that fail to take the roast and remain light, robbing the coffee of flavor and body. Ken: "Burned tones, faint sweetness, not much else" (78).
Dryly acidy but sweet, expansively fruity, distinctly floral. A crisp roastiness turns the fruit toward chocolate. Only a very slight bitter astringency mars this otherwise luxuriously exotic cup.