An extraordinarily clean, elegant Mocha-Java. The contribution of the two Ethiopian coffees is brightly fruity, floral and exhilaratingly fresh. The Java mostly stays out of the way, contributing a slight pungency to balance the Ethiopias' high-toned sweetness. The light body could be taken as a fault, but I found it more exhilaratingly weightless than disappointingly thin.
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We found 1775 reviews that match your search for ethiopia. Coffees are listed in reverse chronological order by review date. Older reviews may no longer accurately reflect current versions of the same coffee.
The floral perfumes are high-toned and exquisite in the aroma and overwhelmingly fragrant in the cup. Eventually a sweet, bright-toned coffee emerges from behind all the flowers. Owing to the floral lift the body reads as lightly buoyant rather than thin.
To say this coffee has an atypical profile for a Hawaii coffee is an understatement. Comparing it to the other coffees in the cupping is worse than comparing apples and oranges - more like comparing apples and cocker spaniels. The Kaanapali dry-process Moka is, as one panelist called it, a "Yemen wannabe." The trees that produced it are Yemen varietals, and the coffee has been processed in the simple, put-it-out-in-the-sun-to-dry approach used in Yemen and parts of Ethiopia. Which means that, like a Yemen or dry-processed Ethiopia, it is fruity, winy, complex, with a disturbingly lush, overripe aftertaste that lovers of these coffees call gamy or wild and people who don't like Yemen or dry-processed Ethiopia coffees call fermented.Five panelists labeled this coffee fermented and dismissed it with very low scores; three recognized the Yemen/Ethiopia characteristics and treated it like a middle-of-the-road dry-processed Yemen/Ethiopia coffee, giving it scores in the high seventies. Four didn't call it anything but gave it low scores.If this coffee had been presented to the panel in the context of similar dry-processed coffees from Yemen or Ethiopia I don't think it would have provoked quite the same level of criticism. For this reason we're not publishing its scores. However, it did not fare well in the context of this particular cupping.
One of the most successful Mocha-Javas in the cupping, this one opens with a shiver of rank Red Sea wildness, which almost immediately gives way to a swelling, lyrical fruitiness that persists sweetly and richly through the high-toned finish. A hint of the rankness resurfaces in the aftertaste. The pleasure here is almost entirely in the complex top of the profile; the bottom is a bit weak and underpowered.
Clean and decisive profile, but a bit too much wallop and not quite enough tickle. Little sweetness or nuance. Some dimension, but a rather hard, winy (not fruity) acidity dominates, sitting on the rest of the profile.
A clean but slightly oppressive hardness or astringency dampens the fruity Mocha-Java richness. A touch of carbon. The background fruitiness pleasantly hints at chocolate in the finish.
Once again, a rather flat astringency, a sort of strident monotone, dominates the center of the profile, abetted in this case by a touch of carbony sharpness. Some fruit and sweetness, though the grace notes tend toward the tobacco and herb.
An exceptionally luxuriant cup, from the deep, vibrant bottom to the lush but muted acidity. I particularly admire this coffee's dimension, the way it continues to develop in waves of gentle revelation from aroma through finish. The problem: as the coffee cools the fruit tones turn slightly overripe and gamey. The positive fruit and complexity come from the same place as the suspect gaminess, of course: One of the blend components is probably a small-grower, hand-processed coffee, probably either an Indonesia Sulawesi or Ethiopia.
Superb aroma: full, rich, stretching from winy top notes to a deep, engaging bottom. But the wine-like East African acidity turns hard in the cup, then reveals clear fermented notes as the coffee cools. The Java component is weak, failing to provide the expansive bottom such blends call for.
I wouldn't have expected a coffee so subtle to stand up to a dark roast so well. The roast only slightly mutes the heady floral tones of the aroma, while the acidity in tantalizing Yirgacheffe fashion hovers between flower and fruit. The body is hardly robust, but substantial enough to support the top notes. Only a trace of carbon.
Floral and vanilla tones hover in the high-toned acidity, exciting without distracting. The acidity is authoritative despite its floral delicacy and the body surprisingly substantial, although the entire profile loses momentum in the finish.
Another flower-laced Yirgacheffe, shimmering with rose and lavender notes. Enough acidity to sustain the fruit and flower innuendoes, but rather light-bodied. Some carbon thinness seems to emerge as the coffee cools. Depending on whether you find the very pronounced flower tones a delight or a distraction, this coffee could merit anywhere from an 80 to a 100. I (roughly) split the difference.
Impressive complexity for such a dark-roasted coffee. Prune and vanilla tones grace the aroma, while a fruit-nuanced acidity dominates in the cup. As the coffee cools suggestions of ferment surface in the fruity acidity.
The high-pitched fruit and vanilla tones in the aroma deepen to herbal wildness in the cup, then to hints of ferment in the finish. Sufficient body but not much dimension.
Pungent, chocolate notes enliven the aroma, but in the cup burned tones dominate. The body is decent, but in the aftertaste the carbon prevails completely.