The World's Leading Coffee Guide
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.
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.
Orange, raisiny chocolate, and pungent herbal notes in the aroma. Delicate in the cup, with continued orange-chocolate and pungent herb notes. Slightly bitter in the short finish, but smoothes out and sweetens nicely in the long.
A sweet fruit ferment contributes to an intense aromatic complexity that carries from nose to cup: Spicy, rose-like flowers, honey, blueberry, ripe peach, a hint of chocolate. The finish is rich and blueberry-toned, but cup and finish both stiffen just a bit as the coffee cools, revealing a hint of heavy astringency.
Nut, prune, cedar and citrus, perhaps grapefruit, in the rich, low-toned aroma. Very sweet in the cup, pungent, with continued walnut and citrus notes and suggestions of earth or moist leaves. Everything settles toward chocolate in the rich finish. The cup roughens very slightly as it cools.
Intense aroma: tart cherry, caramel, hints of lemon, flowers, chocolate. In the cup delicate and pure: brings the fresh, dusky floral and tart cherry notes of coffee flowers and fruit into the cup with continuing hints of chocolate and lemon. The finish is clean, simple, ingenuous.
A whisper of an aroma, but a complex one: flowering grass, caramel, honey, a hint of chocolate. Amazingly sweet and delicately lush in the cup, with the honey notes intensifying and the floral notes declaring as spicy tea rose. The honey and floral notes persist in the surprisingly long, resonant finish.
Cherry notes dominate in the very sweet-toned, pungently acidy aroma. Relatively light-bodied in the cup, but sweetly and buoyantly acidy, with striking and complex aromatic notes: cherry, tea rose, Meyer Lemon, orange, honey. Honey in particular persists in the rich, sweet, though slightly astringent finish.
A deep, spicy floral character - dusk flowers, tea rose - leads in aroma and cup, supported by low-acid fruit notes - peach, cherry - and hints of milk chocolate and leather. The acidity is deep-toned and round, the finish rich and clean.
Pungent but sweet throughout the profile. In the aroma caramel, fruit-toned, slightly smoky cedar, orange. In the cup the pungent, smoky fruit notes read as a tartly sweet grapefruit, perhaps dry berry, with continuing undercurrents of caramel sweetness. Distinct orange notes resurface in the rich finish.
Powerful, sweet-toned aroma: cherry, honey, tea-rose, milk chocolate, with a very mild ferment that reads as delicate Riesling-like wine. In the cup the honey and rose-like floral notes persist lushly, with the fruit notes turning from dark cherry to a tarter coffee fruit. The felicitous ferment deepens, reading more as brandy than wine. The finish is rich and deep, with an attractive persistence of flower, cherry and honey, but is weighed by the astringent heaviness usual with even the best of this style of dry-processed coffee.
Intense, lyrically sweet coffee: honey, flowers and the pure notes of coffee fruit carry from aroma to cup; the acidity is tart but caramelly, even buttery. Impeccably clean, delicately rich finish.
In the aroma intense, pungent with grapefruit and cedar notes. In the cup full-bodied, with the dominating earthy pungency enveloped in deep sweetness. Continued grapefruit, pineapple and cedar notes settle toward honey and chocolate. Sweet, resonant, rich finish, totally free of astringency.
Tartly sweet fruit notes suggest pineapple, grapefruit or perhaps black currant in the aroma, with delicate undercurrents of caramel and earth. In the cup the musty/malty earth notes move richly forward, backgrounding the continuing crisp, pineapply fruit. A slight astringency in the short finish gives way to sweetness and pineapple in the long.
In the aroma richly pungent with low-toned, rather subdued nuance: hints of banana, cedar, date perhaps. In the cup quiet, balanced, bittersweet, with faint whispers of nutmeg, raw date, butter, aromatic wood, all persisting into the rich finish.
Roses, milk chocolate and a hint of aromatic wood in the aroma. Crisp and richly delicate in the cup, with continued hints of aromatic wood, spicy rose and a sweet chocolate. The finish is simple but clean and rich.
Co-cupper Danny O'Neill calls this coffee "a solid cup, well-balanced ... fruity up the middle" (84). Ken found it balanced as well, though he reads the fruit as "a dry, fruit-toned chocolate that wants to be rich but is a bit too lean and simple" (85). Both were disappointed by a mildly astringent finish.
Both co-cupper Danny O'Neill (83) and Ken (87) admired an aroma that was "sweet and spicy" for Danny, "rich, deep and sweetly smoky" for Ken. For Danny the cup was "muddled" and woody, for Ken slightly astringent in structure but nevertheless pleasantly bittersweet with a rich cocoa character that strengthened as the coffee cooled.
A sweet musty character that can read anywhere from malty chocolate to damp basement depending on context and cupper animated this blend. Co-cupper Danny O'Neill (86) was more positive than Ken (83), citing "the sweet chocolaty aroma of fresh brownies" in the aroma and "a delicate balance of mild acidity and smooth buttery body" in the cup with "lingering fruity nuances" in the finish. Ken felt the cup was fundamentally sweet and rather rich, but objected to a "woody, baggy" character nuanced by only "the barest hints of raisins and chocolate" in the cup.
Both co-cupper Danny O'Neill (85) and Ken (87) read foresty notes in the aroma: "fresh greenery and earth" for Danny, "cacao and tree bark" for Ken. The cup was both balanced and quite complex, with fruit notes ("cherry toned" for Ken, "ripe apple and berry" for Danny) combining with continued forest notes that suggested dried flowers or herbs.
An exciting coffee that disappoints in the finish. Ken (88) was more forgiving than co-cupper Danny O'Neill (83), who sums up: "Bright and clean in the nose, this coffee's lusciously thick and smooth body rounds its slightly fruity, almost wine-like, acidity. Sweet honey and fruit flavors become sharp and ... astringent in the long finish." Perhaps the dry-processed Ethiopias in this blend are last year's crop, with their explosive aromatics too faded to compensate for an underlying mildly astringent structure.
