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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.
Distinctive but limited. The strength of the cup is a powerfully smoky, carbony center with pleasing hints of dry chocolate. Little sweetness or range, however, making it a bit of a Johnny-one-note (though it's a rather exotic note).
The dark roast style develops a subdued sweet-sweat pungency and attractive cedar tones in the aroma, but the cup disappoints. Not so much flat as underpowered: light-bodied, little range or dimension, with the main pleasure a gentle, unassuming bittersweetness.
The roast dominates the coffee here, overlaying the mouth-filling Sumatra richness with distinct carbon tones. The result is a dry, pungently full profile, powerful but a bit to astringent for my taste.
Another decaf-ravaged Sumatra: Here the aroma is as subdued as the cup. A touch of carbon from the roast and a bit of sweet tobacco from the Sumatra, but not much else: clean, low-toned, empty.
Another Sumatra with intrigue, but more murky than mysterious. The aroma is marvelous, alive with vanilla and sweet aromatic wood tones, but the cup settles down into a heavy smokiness unrelieved by lift or sweetness. Hints of dry chocolate turn tobaccoish in the finish.
A solid, bordering-on-classic Sumatra profile: low-toned but rich, pleasantly pruny, its distinct pungency saved from bitterness by a sweetness that grows in power as the coffee cools.
A clean profile, but a bit flat. No sweetness, no lift, little dimension. Deep but opaque.
Under the taste of the darkish roast style earthy, but not a sweet or inviting earth. A bit hard (no pun), without depth, bounce or resonance. A tobaccoey, salty tickle in the finish.
Clean and elegant aroma with a shimmer of vanilla. In the demitasse complex, exciting, but not entirely balanced. The contrast of pungent sharpness and underlying caramelly sweetness is dramatic but stark, and carries the coffee precariously toward a rich but slightly astringent aftertaste. Blooms beautifully in milk, softening without losing authority and revealing deep, dry, bittersweet chocolate tones.
An impressive tribute to the tactile dimension of taste: the body is smooth, buttery, alive yet full. The profile is sweet and deeply dimensioned with a pleasantly spicy tickle at its heart, but remains rather limited in range. The aftertaste reveals the merest hint of hardness.
Crisp and toasty nose. In the demitasse heavy though not sharp; some sweetness but little nuance. The heaviness turns smooth in milk, expanding richly, but even there the cup remains austere and rather monolithic.
Distinct orange-citrus tones are exhilaratingly fresh when the cup is hot, but turn mildly astringent as it cools. The body is round and creamy, but lighter than any of the straight Brazils in the cupping.
For me this coffee lacks sufficient sweetness to support its attractive tobacco, spice and floral notes. Sweetness in dry-processed coffees like this one comes from sustained contact of the bean with ripe fruit during drying. The profile-flattening lack of sweetness here may derive from too many green or unripe cherries in the mix.
Restrained but elegant nose; in the demitasse sharply rich but lacks sweetness. The aftertaste is distinctly astringent. Masters milk nicely, but even in dairy not quite enough sweetness and nuance for my palate.
Either an over-aggressive roast or a drying-related defect in the green coffee deadens a promising profile. Satisfying body and richness, but little sweetness or nuance.
A dullness, perhaps a shadow defect from rain-interrupted drying, shadows an otherwise splendidly sweet profile. The sweetness, enlivened by spice and chocolate, almost sneaks out from under the hardness at the finish, but never quite makes it. Too bad.
Very sharp, carbony cup, with little richness or sweetness. Both aroma and body seem burned off the coffee by the rather aggressive roast. I also tried this coffee as espresso. In the demitasse it remained sharp, but softened and sweetened a bit in milk.
A hard, nasty ferment mars an otherwise sweetly rich profile.
Displays a rich, deeply matrixed acidity reminiscent of the best Sumatras. Although the cup is not quite as sweet and roundly ingratiating at first sip as some others in the cupping, the acidity sustains power as the cup cools, hence the somewhat higher rating for this coffee compared to those with comparable sweetness and body. A slight edginess to the acidity may indicate a scattering of cherries that were close to ferment as the coffee dried, but this shadow fault, if present at all, is so faint that it strikes me as a quibble. A fine coffee well-roasted.
Rich with a low-toned, vibrant acidity. The body is creamily smooth, though a touch lighter than the heaviest-bodiedBrazils in the cupping. Here the sweet spice tones characteristic of natural Brazils are buoyant and floral, almost Yirgacheffe-like in their perfumes. The floral tones linger sweetly in the aftertaste.
