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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 earthy flavor dominates the profile. Fortunately, the earth tones are pleasingly sweet and fresh, with just enough herby pungency to complicate rather than distract. The sweetness intensifies toward the finish. The hardness that sometimes sits on the profiles of back-yard-processed coffees like these is barely detectable here.
A solid, no-frills Latin-America acidity dominates the cup. No fruit and very little nuance, although the profile sweetens pleasantly in the finish, rounding toward caramel and perhaps chocolate.
A complex, shifty profile. When the cup is hot, explicit vanilla tones with a hovering suggestion of spice are balanced by a deep-toned, rather pungent tartness. As the cup cools the vanilla sweetens toward caramel and the spice turns vaguely fruity. Perhaps all of the spice and pungency adds up to the famous "smokiness" often attributed to Guatemalas.
Alive with dry nuance and surprise: pruny fruit, crisp chocolate, sweetening slightly toward the finish. As the cup cools the chocolate sharpens a bit toward tobacco and herb. Long, richly dry aftertaste.
Extraordinary aroma: powerfully sweet, enveloping and complex, with tremendous dimension. Almost as impressive in the cup: Full-toned acidity softened by peach or prune, resonant and richly dimensioned, with a sweet, full, almost sugary finish complicated by hints of dry chocolate or tobacco.
It is a measure of this coffee's complexity that every time I returned to the cup it provoked new adjectives. Winy (the favorite), pungent and smoky, vanilla overtones, and in the finish sweetness, prune and chocolate. The body is rather full for a Kenya, and the cup almost shockingly rich. Like all great Kenyas this one keeps shifting and building complexity from first impression through aftertaste.
It is interesting. The solid, rather simple profile is centered on a deep, mouth-filling, pungent richness. Buried in the pungency is an odd but not unpleasant note that I don't quite remember tasting in coffee: a sort of dry saltiness.
The winy acidity characteristic of Kenyas here is pungent and deep, without a trace of fruit or shimmer of berry. It is possible the coffee has faded a bit in storage. Still, a powerful coffee that offers an interesting twist to the Kenya theme.
The acidity is light and bright with a shimmer of fruit. At the center of the profile a slight pungency is nuanced by dry wine tones. Not much range, but solid dimension and outstanding balance.
About half the cups of this low-toned but forceful blend hint at the taste defect called bagginess, a flat, ropey taste green coffee acquires when it has not been fully cured before shipping or stored properly. The cups free of defect display a subdued intensity powered by a spicy, edge-of-astringent pungency.
Restrained, low-toned, rather full-bodied, but not flat. In fact, alive with understated nuance: some tobacco tones, a full, dry spice impression that could be called chocolate; perhaps a hint of fruit or wine in the round finish. The aftertaste leaves a balanced memory of chocolate sweetness and dry tobacco.
An unusually light-bodied, high-toned Guatemala, distinguished by a clean, bright acidity and sweet flowers in the finish. A hint of sweet spice or perhaps chocolate-toned fruitiness resonates under the flowers.
Some cups display a muted but disturbingly hard off-taste, probably a fault in the drying. The clean cups are low-key, sweet, with a pleasant, round earthiness and excellent resonance or dimension.
Some cups of the sample are marred by a slight but distracting hardness, probably a fault in either drying or storage of the green coffee. The untainted cups are gentle, chocolaty and sweet, with a touch, perhaps, of flowers.
A natural, vanilla-toned sweetness distinguishes a low-key but lively profile. Nut and spice notes complicate the vanilla sweetness in the aroma, but by finish and aftertaste the vanilla gently (and pleasingly) dominates. Little range or dimension; the vanilla is the main act.
Floral, fruity tones dominate, modulating to a sweet spiciness in the finish. The fruit reasserts itself in the long aftertaste. The fruitiness flirts with the over-the-top lush taste called ferment, but to my palate remains on the fresh, pleasing side of the fruit-ferment line.
Plenty of nuance and long, complex development. An authoritative, dry-spice pungency opens in a matrix of shadow sweetness. A touch of vanilla in the finish, dry chocolate in the aftertaste. As the cup cools the spice softens and sweetens deliciously.
The dry, bright sensation called acidity dominates both nose and cup here. It is a pure acidity, without fruity complication or sweet reservation: clean and abstract. Acidity energizes a profile with plenty of sensation in mid range, but with little at the top and only a hint of pruny underpinning.
The floral perfumes are high-toned and exquisite in the aroma and overwhelmingly fragrant in the cup. Eventually a sweet, bright-toned coffee emerges from behind all the flowers. Owing to the floral lift the body reads as lightly buoyant rather than thin.
A gentle cup that seduces rather than imposes. Saved from the ordinary by a soft, rounded complexity and impressive dimension. Warmly pungent tones, faintly tobaccoish or herby, soften toward chocolate in the finish.
