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A cup that will put off purist coffee professionals but please everyone else: Fermented fruit tones that require some imagination to read as cherryish chocolate in the aroma simply explode with extravagantly complex fruit and floral nuance in the cup. As the cup cools the fruit seems to shed its ambiguous ferment entirely and turn cleanly lush.

Sweet, richly low-toned, luxuriously fruity, but distinctly musty. The mustiness is the almost effervescent kind that can be charitably read as spice. Cleans up a bit in a long, rather satisfying finish.

In the nose distinctly roasty, pungent, but quite sweet and resonantly round-toned. In the cup cleanly burned but still quite sweet, light-bodied but round in impression. Some fruit, perhaps softened by a hint of clean ferment, makes itself felt as the cup cools.

Rich in the aroma, pungent fruit, fresh leather, roasty chocolate. The roast tones turn the cup rather sharp and monotoned, however. In the finish softens once again toward a richly dry, chocolate-toned fruit.

In the nose sweetly pungent, with a round, full, balanced roastiness free of burned tones. The roasty tones sharpen in the cup, however, carrying into a long but rather astringent finish.

The aroma is subtly rich and crisp with dry cocoa tones. In the cup a sweetly balanced, delicately floral, cherry-toned coffee wants to emerge, but something is shadowing the profile, perhaps a very slight but flavor-dampening mildew.

Very sweet and round in both nose and cup, nuanced by a voluptuous fruity chocolate. This low-toned fruit may reveal a slight ferment that most palates will read as a complicating note to the chocolate.

Superb aroma: sweet, balanced, intense, with deep dimension and a grand range of nuance, ranging from floral top notes to mid-tones of papaya and perhaps pear. In the cup an explosive entry, with intense, almost contradictory impressions of sweetness, bitterness, acidity and distinct floral and cherry-toned fruit. This amazing cup hardens a bit toward the finish, although the finish itself is smoothly rich and floral.

In the nose intensely roasty and intensely alive with pungently sweet fruit - passion fruit, or sweet grapefruit. In the cup the powerful coupling of sweet fruit and bitterish roast tones persists. Patient palates may read a raisin-toned dark chocolate in the roasty fruit.

A vastly rich, balanced medium-dark roast, distinctly nuanced from nose to finish with a deep, bittersweet, raisin-toned chocolate. As is often the case with deeply fruit-toned coffees, some of the lush richness may derive from a fortuitous edge of sweet ferment.

Lovely balance of sweet and dryly acidy tones; more than balanced, integrated and smoothly compete in expression. Floral notes in the nose; in the cup the cherry-toned fruit carries pleasing hints of a clean, sweet ferment.

Lots of complaints and caveats here. For Willem the aroma was "slightly musty, chocolaty," for Ken "heavy, bittersweet." In the demitasse Willem found "bitter, sharp flavor notes" and Ken "sharpish, ponderously sour tones" although he did detect "some incongruous floral topnotes." "Definitely lacked sweetness with and without milk," Willem concluded. (80) "Powerful but oddly sourish in milk" for Ken. (81)

Ken found this espresso matched its name: A straightforwardly roasty, simple espresso of the kind pumped out of roadside espresso carts and kiosks all over the Northwest: "Dark-roasted with a smoky bite and a low-toned papaya-like fruit that turns vaguely chocolate in the finish. Smoky and a little flat in milk." (84) Willem, however, acknowledges only the negative side of the aggressive roast with its limited range: "Burned, dull aroma with unpleasant carbony and cardboard flavor." (78)

Neither Ken nor Willem developed much enthusiasm for this beautifully packaged coffee. Willem apparently liked the "mild floral notes" in the aroma, but in the cup found both body and flavor "lacked balance and temperature stability," meaning they changed for the worse as the coffee cooled. (82) Ken found the smoky, low-toned fruity aroma attractive, but the cup bitterly pungent and smoky without resonance or resilience. The coffee failed to "blossom" for him in milk and remained smoky and flat. (82)

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."

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)

Ken admired this blend (86) more than Willem (83), who was ambivalent about the aroma ("chocolate with a hint of tobacco"), critical of the small cup ("lacks sweetness and balance") though mildly approving of performance in milk ("pleasant caramel aftertaste"). For Ken, the aroma also was a bit feeble and musty in its chocolate and papaya suggestions, the cup a bit too dominated by musty and slightly fermented fruit notes, but he felt the finish "smoothed out nicely toward dry prune and chocolate," and the blend showed excellent presence in milk. He got so carried away he decided he found marzipan and mint notes in the milk finish.

Both Ken and Willem admired the aroma of this rather darkly roasted blend, but the ambiguous flavor notes in the cup provoked ambivalence. For Willem the aroma was "excellent & fine and deep at the same time, with delicious floral notes," for Ken it was "sweet with a round, roasty chocolate and peach and floral notes." In the cup Willem found an "interesting flavor with an overpowering berry, almost musty, fruit aftertaste" (86) and Ken "dominating pungent, smoky tones, with a dry edge of chocolate; rather sharp and thin in the finish." (83)

Ken and Willem were eight points apart on this one. Ken liked the aromatic excitement of the "floral and fruit notes with complex smoky undertones" that he followed with pleasure from aroma through finish to milk. Although he found the small cup a bit sharp and thin-bodied, he forgave all in return for the floral and fruit complexity. (89) Willem, on the other hand, tasted nothing but imbalance and too much acidity: "Somewhat dull aroma with minor earthy notes" and in the small cup "mildly sharp and some uncontrolled acidity." He was a bit more forgiving with performance in milk: "sweet, bright, with caramel aftertaste." (81)

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)