Central America Reviews

Agreeably balances roast pungency and classic high-grown acidity. The roast rounds the acidity and turns the fruit richly dry.

A big, centered, complete Central-America- style coffee. Brightly acidy in the upper ranges, richly sweet in the lower, with hints of flowers and cedar in the nose and distinct chocolate in the finish. Displayed its true character as it cooled -- rather than falling apart, it opened up, revealing still more nuance.

A classic Central-America coffee dominated by a richly powerful acidity, a fat body, and a round, sweet, chocolaty finish.

Medium bodied, high-toned but smooth, a quintessential American cup, from the vanilla-nut, sweetly acidy nose to the long swoon of the chocolaty finish.

Classic, clean, complete, elegantly powerful. The acidity sings rather than stings: It is bright yet full-toned and winy. The aftertaste is richly dry without sharpness.

Powerful yet smooth and sweetly balanced. The acidity is round and ripe. High-toned fruit -- pears perhaps -- deepen toward roasty dry prune and bittersweet chocolate in the finish.

Irrepressibly buoyant, superbly balanced. The acidity shimmers in the heart of a meadow of floral-toned sweetness. The aftertaste is clean, long, lavender. Exquisite, elegant, precious.

A classic Guatemala in the lighter, softer mode: floral, gently acidy, high-toned but deeply dimensioned. Flowers permeate even the slight bitterness of the roast. A coffee as pure, sweet-toned and brightly complex as a Guatemalan weaving.

A light-bodied but complexly nuanced coffee: brightly acidy, floral toned, with fruit tones that hint at chocolate in aroma and aftertaste. Not quite enough sweetness to offset the roast-induced bitterness, however.

Dry but not acidy, dominated by a pleasantly smoky-toned cocoa sensation that sweetens toward chocolate in the finish. As usual, the Swiss Water Process simultaneously deepens and dampens taste: The body is full but the flavor understated.

Metaphor fails. This is a coffee that refers to nothing except what it is: a superb coffee, grand yet elegant, dry yet sweet, balanced, full-bodied, complete.

Full yet majestically buoyant. The aroma soars with sweet nut notes, the cup glistens with fruit and flowers, the entire impression is gentle but enormous. The finish is aggressively dry but saved from astringency by rich cocoa tones.

Classic vanilla-nut aroma and a solid, authoritatively dry cup, bright but not brassy. Not a lot of nuance, but outstanding range and balance.

An almost symphonic coffee. Nuance stretches across the profile: floral notes at the top, winy, dry fruit in the middle, and a smoky pungency at bottom. Sweet, cedarish notes tend to dominate in aroma and aftertaste, but in the cup fruit and flowers upstage everything else.

A classic Latin-American cup, dominated by an austere, powerful, full-throated acidity. The big, acidy profile is both impressive and monolithic, complicated only by barely felt floral tones, a sort of deeply held essence of flowers.

An unusual profile: sweet cedarish tones turn smokily chocolate in the finish. The chocolate sensation is superb: dry yet sweet, crisp and complex, lingering with husky richness in the aftertaste.

A rich, rounded acidity dominates with unaffected clarity from aroma through aftertaste. A cup in which nuance is not so much absent as irrelevant to the cup's essential candor.

A full, rich, low-keyed cup. Stolid but not inert, with just enough acidity vibrating at the heart of the coffee to keep it lively.

A gently bright coffee, sweet and alive with spice and smoke in the aroma and floral innuendo in the cup. The floral tones linger in the aftertaste. Just enough resonance and depth to maintain authority.

The roast dominates the coffee, burning off sugars and turning the cup dryly pungent, full and hearty but not sweet. Crisp chocolate tones complicate the finish.