Raising Coffee Consciousness: The Cup of Excellence and Green Coffee Competitions

Understated but quietly distinctive. The aroma is round, caramelly and (quite literally) buttery; patience may turn up little cedar and chocolate revelations as well. The butter and caramel notes carry into the cup, where the fruity chocolate intensifies. The short finish is deep, sweet and rich; a memory of chocolate resurfaces in the long.

Sweet, low-toned, deep, to turn metaphorical, a quiet, smiling, radiant coffee. In the aroma caramel and peach-toned fruit. The peach notes carry into the cup, joined by exhilarating suggestions of flowers and a hint of chocolate. The chocolate turns more explicit in the fine, rich finish.

Delicately rich in aroma and cup. The clean, elegant fruit suggests peach in the aroma and cherry in the cup, with a little swoon toward chocolate. The refined acidity rounds and sweetens beautifully as the cup cools, deepening toward wine.

The aroma is low-toned but resonant with leather and fruit-toned chocolate. The acidity is rich and smoothly integrated, the mouthfeel round and supple. The chocolate declaration in the aroma is even more pronounced in the cup, but fruitier, more opulent.

A delicately intense, sweetly acidy cup. In the aroma spicy and floral with milk chocolate undertones. Perfectly balanced and lyric in the cup, with floral notes and a sweet, high-toned temperate fruit, pear or cherry. The chocolate resurfaces in the long, gently astringent finish.

An unusual bittersweet, gently spicy tendency runs from aroma through finish. The aroma is caramelly but pungent, with a hint of milk chocolate. The cup is low-toned and dominated by a sweet/sour/bitter fruit; tamarind and lemon perhaps. In the cup the background milk chocolate is more pronounced, rounding the bright fruit. The finish is slightly but richly astringent.

A bold, sweetly acidy coffee with a shifting, subtle complexity. In the aroma low-toned, lushly rich fruit (apricot, papaya, even banana) leaning toward milk chocolate. In the cup brighter and higher-toned, with lemon, flowers and continued suggestions of milk chocolate. Rounds and richens as it cools, the fruit tones landing somewhere near cherry.

Sweet, low-toned, resonant in dimension. Distinct raisin and milk chocolate notes in the aroma. In the cup big-bodied and creamy, with a tightly woven, deep-toned, caramel- and chocolate-toned complexity.

Aroma and finish are balanced and understated, almost simple, but the cup transcends limitation with its big-bodied, sweet-toned opulence. There is nuance here: roast-influenced cedar and dark chocolate in the aroma, caramel and perhaps raisin in the cup, but the sensory payoff is the fatly silky body and round, resonant depth.

Low-key and rich. In the aroma fresh-cut cedar and caramel, with a shimmer of crisply temperate fruit, pear perhaps. In the cup the low-toned acidity is sweet, the mouthfeel round. The cup is a bit monotoned when hot, but as it cools it opens up beautifully, revealing a deep, black-cherry-toned fruit. The finish is slightly heavy.

Low-toned and pungent, bittersweet rather than acidy. Cedar and chocolate hints in the aroma; in the cup a deep, pruny (or perhaps dried fig) fruit and crisp, dry berry notes, with perhaps a little rounding suggestion of chocolate.

A past-crop green coffee that faded badly in storage before roasting. The dominating character is a pungency that reads as sweet pine in the aroma and a rather salty spice in the cup.