Cooperative Reviews

A complex, shifty profile. When the cup is hot, explicit vanilla tones with a hovering suggestion of spice are balanced by a deep-toned, rather pungent tartness. As the cup cools the vanilla sweetens toward caramel and the spice turns vaguely fruity. Perhaps all of the spice and pungency adds up to the famous "smokiness" often attributed to Guatemalas.

Alive with dry nuance and surprise: pruny fruit, crisp chocolate, sweetening slightly toward the finish. As the cup cools the chocolate sharpens a bit toward tobacco and herb. Long, richly dry aftertaste.

Extraordinary aroma: powerfully sweet, enveloping and complex, with tremendous dimension. Almost as impressive in the cup: Full-toned acidity softened by peach or prune, resonant and richly dimensioned, with a sweet, full, almost sugary finish complicated by hints of dry chocolate or tobacco.

A gentle cup that seduces rather than imposes. Saved from the ordinary by a soft, rounded complexity and impressive dimension. Warmly pungent tones, faintly tobaccoish or herby, soften toward chocolate in the finish.

Another typically full-bodied, solid-centered Sumatra. Not much range or complexity, but good development: If you stay with the coffee the heaviness at the center seems to grow in weight and power, revealing reticent pruny, sweet-pungent tones in the finish. As it cools, the herby, earthy tones characteristic of some Sumatras emerge, carrying (perhaps) a hint of hardness. Without that hint I would have rated this Sumatra higher.

A decent coffee ruined by a probably avoidable defect. Parts of the bag from which our samples came apparently picked up moisture during storage. Some individual samples (perhaps from the top part of the bag) cupped cleanly and sweetly, but most displayed either a rope-like taste called baggy (cited by five cuppers) or the moldy-basement taste called musty (two cuppers), both defects typically caused by post-processing moisture. Inspection of this coffee revealed more visual defects than displayed by any of the Itzalco coffees in the cupping, which may indicate something additional went wrong before the coffee went into the bag.

Two contributors admired this coffee for its soft sweetness. Everyone else found it commonplace: "A bit flat, though pleasant and inoffensive"; "Okay, nondescript." The most outspoken condemnation: "Flat, dusty, institutional." Curiously, although most cuppers found the taste flat, several cited piquant nuances: herbal, spicy, etc. Perhaps the piquancy suggests the potential of this coffee and the flatness is a weakness caused by rushed fermentation or errors in handling or storage. Support for the latter hypothesis comes from one very specific assessment: "Slightly musty in the cup."

Most of the wallflower coffees near the bottom of the rankings managed to seduce at least one or two of the Cupping Board with their soft sweetness. I fell for this one. I found it light but pleasingly subtle and complex in the upper registers. I wasn't completely alone: "nice, mild coffee"; "smooth"; "nutty, caramelly." But a majority found little interest to offset the light body: "common"; "not very exciting"; "crispy but boring." Furthermore, three found the acidity a little edgy ("a touch sour"; "harsh"; "raw"). Another reported a yeastiness in one of three cups. I understand the characterization of this coffee as common but not the complaints about the acidity. Perhaps this is another case of variation among individual samples.

Sweet-nuanced words like nutty, fruity and caramelly dominated reports on this coffee. "Interesting combination of aspects," said one. I found the acidity a bit hard behind the fruit tones, but almost no one else complained. One cupper alone found a defect: one slightly dirty cup out of (presumably) three.

Dark fruit (prune?) tones complicate a solid, balanced, dark-roast character. Some carbon at the top of the profile, but good Indonesia richness underneath. The carbon dominates in the aftertaste.