Dark Reviews

Rich in the aroma, pungent fruit, fresh leather, roasty chocolate. The roast tones turn the cup rather sharp and monotoned, however. In the finish softens once again toward a richly dry, chocolate-toned fruit.

In the nose intensely roasty and intensely alive with pungently sweet fruit - passion fruit, or sweet grapefruit. In the cup the powerful coupling of sweet fruit and bitterish roast tones persists. Patient palates may read a raisin-toned dark chocolate in the roasty fruit.

Willem: "Blossom-like, peppery aroma, just like the roses from my 50+year-old rose tree! Mild sweet flavor with lingering floral aftertaste. Excellent caramel complexity with milk. I loved it." (92) What for Willem was peppery and blossom-like, for Ken was spicy and fruity in the aroma and smokily fruity in the small cup. Ken wanted more sweetness in the demitasse but in milk praised this blend as "sweet, crisp and cherry-like edging toward chocolate." (89).

Both Willem and Ken found this blend satisfying, though not exciting. Willem: "elegant floral aroma. Overall: smooth and soft with pleasantly lingering aftertaste. Rich caramel notes in milk." (87) Ken: "Complex in a narrow range: smoky, sweet fruit in the aroma, smoky and spicy in the demitasse. Caramelly and sweet though a bit shallow in milk." (86)

Both Ken and Willem admired the aroma of this rather darkly roasted blend, but the ambiguous flavor notes in the cup provoked ambivalence. For Willem the aroma was "excellent & fine and deep at the same time, with delicious floral notes," for Ken it was "sweet with a round, roasty chocolate and peach and floral notes." In the cup Willem found an "interesting flavor with an overpowering berry, almost musty, fruit aftertaste" (86) and Ken "dominating pungent, smoky tones, with a dry edge of chocolate; rather sharp and thin in the finish." (83)

Willem found this sample of the Starbucks staple blend "balanced throughout with no major high [positive] or low [negative] notes in aroma, flavor and aftertaste. [In the demitasse] some sweetness with a bitter end note. With milk, sweet, spicy, [with] a mild, pungent aftertaste." (85) Ken was less impressed. For him the aroma was "smoky, sweet and subdued," the body lean, the small cup "smoky and simple." He was most taken with this ubiquitous blend's impact in milk: "sweetens and rounds, prune fruit softens toward chocolate in the finish." (83)

Ken found this espresso matched its name: A straightforwardly roasty, simple espresso of the kind pumped out of roadside espresso carts and kiosks all over the Northwest: "Dark-roasted with a smoky bite and a low-toned papaya-like fruit that turns vaguely chocolate in the finish. Smoky and a little flat in milk." (84) Willem, however, acknowledges only the negative side of the aggressive roast with its limited range: "Burned, dull aroma with unpleasant carbony and cardboard flavor." (78)

Sweetly balanced and gently roasty. Little distinguishable nuance, though the cup is pleasantly alive with an almost subliminal range of fruity sensation. Slight astringency in the finish.

In the aroma roasty, sweet, slightly burned, complicated by a prune-toned fruit just on the dry side of chocolate. In the cup the chocolate inclination of the fruit clearly declares itself, particularly as the coffee cools. The roasty tones turn a bit astringent in the finish.

A gently roasty, light-bodied blend: sweet, balanced, with fresh leather, grapefruit and sweet herb notes, lemon thyme perhaps. Slightly astringent in the finish.

Straightforward, simple but satisfying dark-roast: cleanly roasty, pleasantly smoky but without burned or excessive bitterness. In cup and finish the roastiness takes on a toasty, campfire chocolate character.

Massively roasty in the aroma: sweetly pungent with a sort of lush bar-b-qued apricot-toned fruit. Less impressive in the cup, where the main impression is simply the roast, heavy and burned but not rubbery. Given the weighty intensity of the roast sensation, surprisingly sweet and rich in the finish, with only a slight astringency.

Cleanly smoky and rather richly roasty, complicated by shimmers of sweetly tart, high-toned fruit - pineapple perhaps.

The aroma doesn't provoke much anticipation: roasty, edge of burned, midtoned, without range or nuance. Softens and complicates in the cup, displaying a pleasantly wine-toned balance of sweet acidity and a discreetly bittersweet roastiness. Simplifies again in the rather sharp finish.

Sweetly roasty in the aroma, thin-bodied and sharply roasty in the cup. Almost disembodied floral top notes float above a bittersweet, prune-toned chocolate.

Roasty, sweet and balanced in the aroma, with shimmers of pineapple. In the cup a light-bodied buoyancy and a continuing tickle of pineapple lifts the dominating sharp, edge-of-burned roastiness. Mildly astringent in the finish.

When hot, a robust, full-bodied dark roast with a pleasantly rough character: chocolate and wine tones in the aroma, in the cup a hint of fruity ferment and musty earth. As the coffee cools, however, the musty earth tones turn bitter and weigh oppressively on the cup.

Richly melodic coffee in which wine and apple notes carry from aroma through cup to finish. A tactful dark roast preserves a shimmer of acidity in the cup while contributing a slight herbal twist to the dominating apple-cider-like notes.

In the aroma explosively sweet and exquisitely balanced, with chocolate and a gently gingery spice. In the cup complex and wide in range: roasty, pungent, with a tickle of lemony sweet acidity and a hint of musty earth. An underlying astringent heaviness weighs slightly on the finish.

Sweet, low-key, expansive aroma. In the cup rich and cleanly roasty, with an agreeable bittersweet balance complicated by fresh leather, chocolate and a shimmer of sweet grapefruit. The grapefruit persists in the rich but astringent finish.