Blind Assessment

Hints of banana-toned fruit, chocolate, fresh-baked bread in the complex but rather listless aroma. Thin though silky mouthfeel. Pungent, gently burned cedar character in the cup, with floral and caramelly chocolate suggestions. Nicely malty finish, but a hint of burned building rubber.

Notes

The small-holding tribal growers of the Toraja region of the Indonesian island of Sulawesi produce coffees that, even more than the coffees of the neighboring island of Sumatra, typically express an earthy, often spicy, sometimes forest-floor character encouraged by unorthodox fruit removal and drying processes. This is number three in Starbucks' 2006 Black Apron Exclusives line of distinctive seasonally available coffees. Visit www.starbucks.com for more information.

Who Should Drink It

Another decent but essentially listless and flat coffee from Starbucks, which over the past couple of years seems to have finally succumbed to the dangers of hugeness. In a case like this one I am not clear whether the coffee started out without character and energy, was held in the warehouse too long before roasting, was roasted badly, or whether it simply sat in the packaging so long after roasting and it went flat without going outright stale.

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