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We have published thousands of coffee reviews and espresso reviews since 1997. The reviews below appear in reverse chronological order by review date. Older reviews may no longer accurately reflect current versions of the same coffee. To search for a specific roaster, origin or coffee use the Advanced Search Function.
The characteristically powerful, Burgundy-like Kenya acidity dominates, but if you're patient an immense and subtle richness opens beneath it, assuring a long finish and a resonant aftertaste.
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.
For a Kenya, displays a relatively restrained acidity. In another coffee this gentleness might be a fault, but here it reads as understatement, a polite permission for the complexity and echoing dimension of the coffee to emerge without getting upstaged by acidy dramatics.
The only Zimbabwe in the cupping. Lighter and drier than the best Kenya, with less dimension in the cup and a somewhat more attenuated finish. The pleasure is in the superb top of this coffee, both aroma and acidity levitating with dry fruit and cinnamon tones.
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.
The Kenya wine tones are lighter here, more Bordeaux than Burgundy. The profile is also simpler than in many Kenyas, but the high, singing tones of the acidity please until the aftertaste, when they turn slightly astringent.
Carbon tones overlay the sweet fruit fragrances of this dark-roasted Kenya, dampening but not obliterating them. A remarkable body and dimension open underneath the carbon, assuring a long, complex finish.
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.
Some wine tones survive the dark roast to complicate the acidity. Brought along to a dark roast slowly enough to spare us burned notes, but for a Kenya not a lot of body or dimension either. The pleasure would seem to be the paradox of understated acidity and dark-roast pungency.
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.
An intense coffee, particularly in the nose, but without grace notes or much resonance. Carbon tones dominate, but allow some sweetness and pungency to balance the cup.
An exquisitely balanced traditional American-style coffee. The acidity is dry without astringency, alive with slight fruit or wine notes. Enveloped in the matrix of the body, it is always present but never dominant.
This coffee gets better as it goes, probably owing to its heavy body. The dark tones of the aroma modulate with increasing power through the cup to a complex finish.
This coffee is so complex at the top that it positively levitates, alive with sweet, light vanilla tones. In the finish whatever is left of the body vanishes, the vanilla tones fade, but the sweetness lingers.
The body is full, the taste richly pungent. The carbon tones permeate, having definitively chased the acidity south, but they're rich, complex carbon tones, rather than the thin kind that whine at you from the cup.
The acidity doesn't immediately reveal itself in the deep, mouth-filling richness of this coffee, emerging most clearly in the powerful finish. A coffee that, in its understated complexity, seems considerably greater than its parts.
This classic medium-dark coffee gives us solid, mouth-filling dark-roast pungency, though the carbon notes seem to co-opt its sweetness. Some acidity survives the roast, and fills out the top of the profile nicely.
A light-medium-roasted blend with power: The aroma is intense and classically acidy. For a coffee so lightly roasted the body is full, and the acidity teases and shimmers before emerging clearly in the finish.
The rest of the taste profile plays peek-a-boo around dominating carbon tones in this very dark roasted coffee. Nevertheless, the pungent sweetness that constitutes the upside of darker roasts prevails, particularly in the cup.
