Africa Reviews

Bright but sweet, lyrically and complexly high-toned. Lemon, cherry, black currant in the aroma. In the cup cherry, tart berries, sweet grapefruit, even a rounding hint of milk chocolate.

Sweetly lyric with delicate but lushly complex high notes in the aroma. The softly lyric character carries into the cup, where the indeterminate aromatic complexity gives way to dramatic floral high notes and Meyer lemon and chocolate midtones.

Simultaneously intensely acidy and extravagantly sweet, medium-bodied, with a whole basket of fruit tones: apricot, dry cherry, sweet lemon, a tiny whiff of chocolate, all lush, crisply rich, complex.

Superb aroma: sweet, balanced, intense, with deep dimension and a grand range of nuance, ranging from floral top notes to mid-tones of papaya and perhaps pear. In the cup an explosive entry, with intense, almost contradictory impressions of sweetness, bitterness, acidity and distinct floral and cherry-toned fruit. This amazing cup hardens a bit toward the finish, although the finish itself is smoothly rich and floral.

Very sweet and round in both nose and cup, nuanced by a voluptuous fruity chocolate. This low-toned fruit may reveal a slight ferment that most palates will read as a complicating note to the chocolate.

Richly melodic coffee in which wine and apple notes carry from aroma through cup to finish. A tactful dark roast preserves a shimmer of acidity in the cup while contributing a slight herbal twist to the dominating apple-cider-like notes.

Sweetly roasty in the aroma, thin-bodied and sharply roasty in the cup. Almost disembodied floral top notes float above a bittersweet, prune-toned chocolate.

Magnificent cup when hot: powerfully but sweetly acidy, resonating with complex chocolate nuance from aroma through finish. The acidity turns rather bitter and the profile simplifies as the cup cools.

Light-bodied, just on the pleasingly delicate side of thin, with oddly contradictory nuance: a roasty, prune-toned chocolate and high-toned shimmers of sweet vanilla.

A Kenya in the more delicate mode: dry yet sweet, crisply fruity with grapefruit, apricot and black currant notes. Turns from crisp to slightly astringent in the finish.

Relatively light bodied but intensely dry and richly astringent, with an austere pineapple- and grapefruit-toned fruit. The finish, like the cup, is astringent but exhilarating. Director of Coffee Geoff Watts admires this Kenya's "pristine character" and its "dynamic and elegant acidity."

Lush floral notes and suggestions of fruity chocolate are pleasantly felt behind a dominating bittersweetness that leans a bit more toward the bitter than the sweet. A floral-toned sweetness softens the astringent finish.

Lush, sweetly overripe Harrar fruit notes are shadowed by salty and bitter tones. Dry chocolate in the finish.

Sweet floral and lemon tones shimmer above rather bitterly pungent bottom notes. The combination of juicy sweetness and pungent bitterness nets a sensation almost pineapple-like in its bracing contradiction. The pungent bottom notes, always present in Sidamos, are heavier than usual here, perhaps owing to the vicissitudes of decaffeination, though they settle and soften as the cup cools.

A deep, resonant pungency envelops the Kenya dry wine and tart berry tones, giving them a sexy fresh-sweat twist. This odd, rough-yet-smooth pungency is a Peet's trade mark, and only occasionally found in coffees dark-roasted by competitors. Here it supports without obliterating the citrus and berry freshness of the Kenya.

Rich Kenya wine tones dominate, buoyed by shimmers of citrus and berry. A complex sweetness blooms as the cup cools and the dry wine tones soften. A fine coffee, although I missed the echoing dimension of the very best Kenyas.

Sweet, deeply dimensioned floral notes dip toward spice and nut in the aroma. The cup is lemony, but it is a complex, deep lemon, modulating toward dry chocolate in the finish. Saved from any hint of candyish sentiment by richly acidy mid-notes.

A cup displaying all of the idiosyncrasy and complexity that makes Yemen such a fascinating origin. The aroma is funky, rich, pungent, all haloed by sweetness. The body is rich and buttery. The controversial, slightly composty overtones to the fruit that turn some palates off to Yemen are gently dominated here by the pungent taste of the roast, turning the fruit into a sensation as much tactile as olfactory, a sort of smoky, dry-toned richness.

Lovely Yirgacheffe character: Floral, intense, transporting, as astonishing at first sip as the sudden scent of jasmine at dusk. What makes this particular Yirgacheffe an especially fine example of the origin is a touch of richness and power supporting the always remarkable perfumes.

Sweet, almost juicy, lemon-and-nut-tones carry exhilaratingly from aroma into the cup. Once there, they turn a bit stolid, then darkens toward tobacco in the finish.