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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.
A compromise coffee between dark and medium roast, pleasantly low-key, but not much range or dimension.
Dominated by a dry, unforgiving pungency. The center of the coffee has little resilience or shimmer. A touch of hard, rubbery taste surfaces in the finish. I have to assume that something went wrong with the roast.
Considerable dry-chocolate intrigue behind the dark-roast pungency. The aroma is extraordinary: light and buoyant with sweet vanilla-chocolate notes and a hint of nut. Settles down in the cup, where the pungency turns the chocolate tones pleasantly dry and smoky.
A wonderful nose, full of bittersweet chocolate and deep vanilla tones, but disappointing in the cup: a clean, dry, but rather hard pungency bullies nuance into submission. A hint of carbon, little sweetness.
A stark pungency dominates: Sweet and rich in the nose, but hardens uncomfortably in the cup, where the sharpness is softened by the barest hint of shadow sweetness. Suggestions of nut in the aroma and dry fruit in the cup barely escape from under the hand of the roast.
An elegant, extraordinary tribute to the pleasures of the sensation coffee people call acidity. Here the acidity is robustly dry yet alive with a full, fragrant sweetness. Everything dances and rings in this coffee.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Ingratiating and open, this coffee makes the most of what it brings to the cup. Not bright but gently lively, nicely balanced between sweet and dry tones, with a pleasant supporting resonance. As the cup cools a slight, almost indistinguishable (storage-related?) hardness seems to shadow the sweetness.
Judged on aroma alone, this coffee easily would top the ratings. Intense, deeply dimensioned nut tones soar with an exhilarating sweetness. In the cup, however, things quiet down quickly. A heavy, low-toned acidity dominates a profile complicated by interesting spicy and smoky notes, but without much lift or dimension.
The center of the profile is satisfyingly round and full but rather opaque, without lift or brightness. The lone complication is a hint of pungent, pruny fruitiness that turns slightly hard as the cup cools. The impassive profile reveals nuance only as it fades rather richly in the aftertaste.
The coffee is buried under the taste of the roast. To the roastmaster's credit, however, this is no thin, carbony super-dark roast. It displays a pungent heaviness, flirting with bitter, softened at the edges by an almost subliminal sweetness. The sweetness intensifies somewhat in the finish, pushing the pungency toward chocolate. It never quite gets there, however.
Extraordinary aroma: Nothing dramatic, but that may be the point here. Balanced and gently complex. Crisp dry tones keep the levitating sweetness grounded. Hints of smoke in the finish sweeten toward chocolate in the aftertaste.
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.
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.
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.
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.