Blend Reviews

Crisp, gently pungent blend with natural sweetness. Orange, cedar and a hint of flowers in the aroma. In the cup lightly syrupy mouthfeel, quietly rich, with cocoa and night flower notes. Simple, clean, resonant finish.

Delicate, gently exotic, complex profile: faintly smoky in aroma and cup, with cocoa, cedar, floral and caramel notes. Lightly syrupy in mouthfeel and bittersweet in structure. The short finish is sweetly cocoa-toned; the long gently astringent.

Crisp aroma distinct baker's chocolate and hints of raisin and pungent, fresh-cut cedar. In the cup quiet, balanced, softly acidy, gently bittersweet, with continued baker's chocolate and raisin notes. Rich, softly astringent finish.

Big, juicy, lushly tart coffee. Distinct flower notes, cherry, orange, roasted nut, honey in aroma and cup. As the cup cools a hint of cocoaish chocolate emerges as well. Outstanding finish: richly and sweetly tart, clean, flavor saturated.

Quiet aroma with walnut and hints of cedar and dark chocolate. In the cup heavy body with a slightly rough mouthfeel, an almost syrupy sweet structure, and dominating musty/earthy notes that can be read as a sort of robust, walnut-toned dark chocolate. The sweetness carries into a rich, slightly tight, continued walnut-toned finish.

Soft aroma with a quiet, tightly-knit complexity: cocoa, cedar, hints of honey and melon. In the cup light-bodied, delicate, with sustaining hints of honey, cocoa, sweet flowering grass. Short but clean, honeyed finish.

Rich, roundly pungent aroma: caramel, orange, hints of flowers and chocolate. Medium bodied, a touch rough in mouthfeel. The richly pungent, cedary character carries into the cup with continued orange, raisin and semi-sweet chocolate notes. The finish is rather astringent but rich, with good flavor persistence. The pungent character softens in milk with the orangy chocolate sweetening nicely.

(As brewed in a Keurig B60 single-serve brewing device using a "K-Cup" capsule at a serving size of 6 ounces): Rather subdued aroma, caramelly, with hints of flowers and chocolate. In the cup medium-bodied but silky in mouthfeel, simple and bittersweet, with distant hints of flowers, walnut, chocolate perhaps. Simple, rich, rather short finish.

(As brewed in a Keurig B60 single-serve brewing device using a "K-Cup" capsule to produce 6-ounce and 8-ounce serving sizes): The aroma displays a simple, pure coffee character: tartly sweet, chocolate-toned fruit and a hint of flowers. In the cup medium but silky bodied at 6 ounces, slightly thinnish at 8. At both serving sizes quite sweet, gently tart, with continued delicate chocolate-toned fruit notes. Nice persistence of chocolate and flowers in the finish, although this delicate, lyric coffee stiffens and simplifies a bit as the cup cools.

Superb aroma: Richly and deeply fruity with floral top notes. In the small cup leanish but smooth mouthfeel, salty sweet, crisp, deeply cedary, with an apricot-toned semi-sweet chocolate. Rich but slightly astringent finish. Masters milk with dry power but without opulence.

Sweet-toned, very deep aroma with complication that reads as banana, orange, semi-sweet chocolate. In the small cup full bodied and cedar- and caramel-toned with continued suggestions of banana-like fruit and semi-sweet chocolate. The cedar and chocolate tones round and sweeten in milk without losing their crisp authority.

Sweet, deep aroma with considerable intrigue: an herby, mentholated lemon, a hint of earth, distinct butter notes. In the cup softly acidy, silky in mouthfeel, voluptuously delicate yet subtly brusque, with cocoa notes and perhaps a continuing hint of butter. The finish is rich and sweet.

Rich, simple aroma: cedar and butter. In the cup agreeably deep-toned and round, with chocolate and continued butter notes. Good body, soft acidity. Continues consistent into the simple but sweet, rich finish.

A quiet, sweetly rounded coffee. Cherry and a hint of chocolate in the aroma, softly acidy and rather full-bodied in the cup, with candied walnut, cacao and pipe tobacco notes. Simple, gently rich finish.

A quietly exotic, complex blend of impressive originality. Smoothly midtoned, gently pungent aroma. In the cup displays lively, almost peppery acidity and full body with some tingle in the mouthfeel. Lyrically and richly sweet, with a wine-like, black grapey hint of ferment and a slight musty-malty edge. A surprising shimmer of flowers in the long finish.

An exhilarating and intense blueberry and wine character dominates the profile from aroma to finish. In the aroma the blueberry and wine tones are particularly pure and sweet. In the cup things grow more complicated: the blueberry takes a chocolate turn and the wine may strike some palates as too aggressively fermented. The finish is even more ambiguous, as the blueberry fruit persists nicely but takes a slightly soapy, salty direction. There are some coffee professionals who would give this unorthodox coffee a rating of 95; others would throw it off the table at 75.

Sweetly smoky, fruity aroma. In the cup light to medium body with a silky mouthfeel and quiet balance between a gentle acidity and a discreetly roast (cedar and toast) character. A hint of dark chocolate in the cup and butterscotch in the simple but rich finish.

Sweet-toned, deep aroma with a tight-knit complexity: dried cherry, raisin, moist leaves. Almost syrupy sweet in the cup, with a slight roasty edge. The dried cherry and raisin-toned fruit take on a port-wine richness before settling toward chocolate in the richly bittersweet finish.

Smoke, toast and a hint of flowers in the aroma. In the small cup medium-bodied and smooth in mouthfeel, balanced, rich, simple, with hints of cedar, dark chocolate and toast. Sweet finish. In milk lean-bodied but lush, dominated by a smoky semi-sweet chocolate.

(As brewed in a Keurig B60 single-serve brewing device using a "K-Cup" capsule at a cup volume of 5.25 ounces): Delicately complex aromatics: suggestions of flowers, chocolate, peach, sweet orange, all of which take on a Riesling-like sweetness and delicacy in nose and cup. Gently bright acidity. Fades rather quickly in the finish.