Central America Reviews

Finely balanced cup: delicately roasty, very sweet, with a shimmer of dry acidity. Under the impact of the roast the crisp aromatics lean toward leather and an herb-toned chocolate.

Impressive aroma: balanced, sweetly acidy yet gently roasty, with suggestions of chocolate and low-toned fruit - papaya or apricot. In the cup neither roasty nor acidy, however; simply bitter. Softens toward the finish but never completely recovers its opening balance and complexity.

A challengingly acidy coffee, by sweetly so. A sensitive roast rounds the acidity and deepens the fruit, turning it toward sweet cocoa and ripe cherry. Glints of jasmine. The cocoa-toned fruit persists agreeably through the finish.

A powerfully acidy coffee, sharply rich and winy. Beneath the acidy assertion patient drinking reveals subdued but seductive floral undertones. The aromatics are splendid but the mouthfeel is a bit too astringent for my taste.

The cup is dominated by a simple, rich acidity. The acidy sensation is rather sharp and overbearing when the cup is hot, though it rounds and sweetens as the cup cools, revealing wine-toned fruit and a resonance that could only be guessed at when the cup was hot.

Giddily sweet, rich, balanced. Gentle wine-toned fruit (call it chardonnay) and low-key floral notes run through aroma and cup, rounding toward milk chocolate n the finish. A superb expression of the El Salvador type.

Dry and forceful. The acidity is intense but sweet. The fruit is crisply austere: black currant, sauvignon blanc wine grapes. A challenging coffee that commands rather than seduces.

The aroma is remarkable: rich, sweet, caramelly, complete. In the cup substantial, brightly rich, with tickles of citrus and cocoa. The chocolate-toned finish sits rather heavily on the palate.

Clear, sweet ferment tones are turned cherryish chocolate by the darkish roast. Clean, bittersweet chocolate finish. The winy ferment tones, giddy and buoyant when the cup is hot, flatten just a bit as the cup cools.

Rich, sweet, with a gentle lift from the acidity, complicated by pronounced chocolate fruit tones (think chocolate-covered cherries). The body reads as bigger than it is owing to the general richness of the cup. Not much range or complexity, but a fundamentally pleasing cup.

A richly expansive, deeply dimensioned coffee, caramelly, smooth, with an elegant balance of slightly bitter roasty notes, sweetness, and a gently fruity acidity.

Medium-bodied but smooth, sweet, chocolaty, with a glint of dry acidity to animate the sweetness. The roast taste is backgrounded and unobtrusive, wrapped in the chocolate-toned sweetness.

The clean nut-like notes and undertone of spice are unusual for a moderately dark-roasted coffee like this one. The body is impressively full, the finish roasty and pungent with a mild but pleasing bitterness.

Smooth, balanced, with excellent range, from floral top notes through a bright, juicy, acidy middle to a roasty, bitterish bottom. The most impressive aspect of this coffee is its pleasing natural sweetness, which persists from aroma through cup to light-footed but authoritative finish.

Here the whole is more than the parts. A balanced structure of sweetness and bitterness and a plump, smooth body compensate for a relative lack of nuance. For some coffee drinkers, the bitterness may assert itself a bit too strongly in the aftertaste.