Blend Reviews

Richly and sweetly acidy coffee with delicate complexity and depth. Cherryish fruit and nut notes in the aroma carry into the cup, with the fruit taking on a Riesling-like tart sweetness. Clean, crisp finish.

Aroma and flavor display intense, pungent pine and cedar wood with soft hints of earth, cocoa and grapefruit. Balanced acidity, medium to full body. The flavor characteristics are sustained in the long, dry finish.

Intense, complex, roughly rich cup. In the aroma lush fermented fruit, moist fresh-fallen leaves and a hint of anise-like herb. In the cup the fruit ferment turns toward a minty, herb-nuanced dark chocolate or perhaps spiced apricot, with continued undercurrents of fresh earth and moist leaves. Complex, flavor-saturated finish shadowed by a very slight astringency.

Delicate but rich. Distinct milk chocolate notes and hints of butter and apricot-like fruit in aroma and cup; a suggestion of earth in the cup. The chocolate carries into a clean, sweet-toned finish.

Poised and balanced in aroma and cup, with cocoa-toned fruit, nut, aromatic wood, and a hint of mint-like herb. Delicately rich acidity, lightly syrupy body. The finish reveals a hint of astringency.

Balanced notes of pungent cedar, sweet-toned chocolate and a whisper of sage in the aroma. Intense in the cup: sherry, nut, earth and a continuing dry cedary or herb-like pungency, all persisting in the long, dry finish.

Deeply roasty aroma with hints of cedar, nut and chocolate. In the cup, medium body and sweet-toned flavors: charred wood, dark chocolate and hint of earth and pungent fruit. The finish displays some sweetness and a mild astringent roastiness that lingers in the long.

In the pungent aroma chocolate, walnut, toasted grain, perhaps caramel. Mild acidity and balanced flavors, with hints of citrus that soften to a more sweet-toned fruit and then to an earthy chocolate. Slight roughness in the finish distracts from the pleasant bittersweet chocolate character.

Evaluated as espresso. Deeply sweet aroma displaying elements of flowers, strawberry and honey. The aromatic notes carry into the small cup with complications of cherry, berry and a fruit-toned chocolate that persist into the long sweet finish. In two parts milk the fruit and floral notes gracefully survive and the chocolate mellows and rounds.

Evaluated as espresso. Simple, sweet and rich in the aroma; caramel with a hint of flowers. In the small cup deep, balanced, complex: peach-toned fruit, dark chocolate, orangy citrus, continued floral top notes. The flowers and chocolate in particular persist into a long finish. Dense mouthfeel. In two parts milk, muted hints of the flowers and peach-toned fruit survive to complicate the predictable chocolate-caramel bloom.

(As brewed in a Keurig B70 Platinum single-serve brewing device using a "K-Cup" capsule to produce a 6-ounce serving size): Soft, caramel-like aroma with hints of milk chocolate and toast. An uncomplicated cup, medium body, flavor notes of cedar, caramel, nut and orange-toned citrus. Sweetness carries into the mildly nutty finish, with distant suggestions of molasses and chocolate.

(As brewed in a Keurig B70 Platinum single-serve brewing device using a "K-Cup" capsule to produce a 6-ounce serving size): Muted aroma of orangey fruit, caramel and wood. Lightly syrupy mouthfeel and simple flavors: nut, raisin and caramel. Muted sweetness in the finish fades rather quickly to a mildly astringent nut-like character.

Sweet-toned aroma with a hint of lightly charred cedar and an intense cherry-chocolate note. Medium to full body in the cup, with a slightly lean mouthfeel and soft, roasty flavors with hints of rosemary, toast and earth. Roastiness lingers in the long, dry, mildly astringent, bitter-sweet finish.

Rich, sweet-toned, toasty aroma with soft hints of nut and cinnamon. Medium to full body with a delicately soft mouthfeel. Quite complex in the cup: toast, cedar, chocolate, raisin and flowers. The roasty dark chocolate persists into a rich, simple finish.

Straightforward aroma with hints of wood and citrus. In the cup bright-toned, medium in body, with a sweet orangy character. A mild, rather papery astringency dominates in the finish.

A richly balanced cup with a pungent aroma of cocoa, baking spices and orange. The orange character carries from aroma into flavor, where it is complicated by hints of flowers and flowering grasses. Mild sweetness and a touch of chocolate in the finish.

A very dark roast yields a deep, smoky, charred-wood aroma, complicated by remote hints of caramel and roasted nut. Medium-body, smooth mouthfeel, with gentle charred wood notes dominating the flavor and carrying into the finish.

Co-taster Byron Holcomb (94): "On the nose, I got inviting, complex floral and strawberry notes. The body was vivacious - I could have said round, sweet, with a little savory edge, comforting, but vivacious will do." Both Ken (94) and Byron found chocolate and malt in the flavor, with an assortment of additional descriptors that testify to the complexity of this blend: "cedar, butter" (Ken), "lemon bar, spice" (Byron). Both were impressed by the big, sweet, chocolaty bloom in milk, which Byron found was complicated by a continued, brightening hint of lemon zest. It appears that a very controlled, judicious use of cleanly fruity-fermented dry-processed coffees contributed to the round, sweet, complex richness of this versatile blend.

Aroma and flavor highlight notes of gently charred aromatic wood, dark chocolate and toast. As the cup cools, soft fruit flavors emerge (citrus?) as well as a hint of leather. Roastiness lingers in the finish, developing a cocoa toned sweetness in the long.

Lovely balance. Crisply sweet-toned aroma: lemon, flowers, and a deepening hint of pungent dried fruit. In the cup gently bright, with a continued delicate sweetness and complex cherryish fruit completely free of bitter or astringent imbalances. Cleanly simple finish.