Brazil Zinho Peaberry Natural

Blind Assessment: Sweetly and gently pungent. Dark chocolate, cedar, walnut, a hint of orangy fruit in aroma and cup. Roast-rounded acidity; lightly syrupy mouthfeel. Some chocolate sweetness lingers in a rather dry, roasty finish.

Notes: A dry-processed or "natural" coffee, meaning the beans were dried inside the fruit rather than after the fruit has been removed, as is the case with wet-processed or "washed" coffees. Produced from trees of the respected Red Catuaí variety of Arabica. This sample consists entirely of peaberries, a kind of bean that results when the coffee fruit develops only a single, oval bean rather than the usual pair of flat-sided beans. Peaberries produce a somewhat different (often better) cup than normal beans from the same crop, from which they may or may not be separated during grading. “Zinho” is the affectionate nickname of long-time farmer Joao Sydney de Souza. Caravan Coffee is an artisan roaster that began as a college-town café and now provides quality service and coffee to wholesale and retail customers nationally. Visit www.caravancoffee.com or call 800-875-5282 for more information.

Who Should Drink It : Those who prefer a mild roasty pungency in a chocolate-and-walnut-toned Brazil.