Estate Reviews
We found 1391 reviews for Estate. The reviews below appear in reverse chronological order by review date. Older reviews may no longer accurately reflect current versions of the same coffee.
An exquisitely delicate coffee. Meltingly sweet and cocoa-toned in the nose, in the cup gently acidy and crisply fruity with cocoa and pear notes. The finish is pleasingly chocolate-toned, but slightly astringent.
The roast dominates an agreeably light-bodied, buoyant, juicily fruit- and floral-toned coffee, turning the pleasantly delicate acidity a touch bitter in the finish.
Splendid aroma: voluptuously rich, chocolaty and perfectly balanced. In the cup deeply dimensioned with a pruny dry fruit edging toward chocolate, but marred by a slight but pervasive bitterness.
A hint of flowers and perhaps chocolate in the finish were the only complications in this straightforward but sweetly ingratiating cup. The chocolate tones may have revealed a slight twist of sweet ferment as the cup cooled.
I found this coffee floral and brightly buoyant when hot, and deeply dimensioned as it cooled. A hint of monotoned bitterness also emerged, however, which I tolerated, but which put off other jury members.
Most of the panel found this coffee defective; "medicinal, nose-wrinkling," said one. Others acknowledged the defect but found some virtue in the cup, reading the mustiness as cedar or cardamom.
I found this coffee pleasantly sweet but flat to a fault. Other panelists complained of a subdued but clear defect, mustiness perhaps. One complainant found this shadow defect ambiguously interesting: "harmonic earthy & aromatic woods?" he asked himself.
When hot, this cup impressed many of the panel with its light-footed, teasing nuance of lemon, flowers and cocoa. Complex in the nose, but as the cup cooled it flattened disappointingly.
A light, bright, fragrantly smooth cup. When hot alive with shimmers of citrus, spice, and nut tones. As the cup cools, however, a disturbing vegetative undertone surfaces: "grassy," "dried peas," "sour," panelists complained. A potentially superb coffee, an India version of the great, brightly nuanced coffees like Guatemala Antigua and Ethiopia Yirgacheffe, but flawed by either processing/storage errors or too much unripe fruit.
An impressive coffee, and distinctive in the India mode: sweet, svelte, smooth, balanced, with some intrigue that read as chocolate, nut, or spice (I tasted cardamom). "Big coffee, sweet," one panelist concluded.
An intensely contradictory coffee. On one hand: full, smooth body, expressively and deeply sweet, long, vibrant finish. On the downside: grassy undertones and an odd edginess to the fruit that grew more obvious as the cup cooled. Some panelists went exclusively with the upside, others only with the down, while a few celebrated the paradox, sometimes in rather unconventional language: "bold, rough, strong -- Neanderthal ancestors," wrote one. One thing is certain: This coffee is considerably more interesting than its rating suggests.
An intriguing, complexly nuanced coffee that suffered from inconsistency. Panelists responded positively to its richly nutty aroma and sweet floral and fruit notes. A disturbing astringency surfaced in some cups, however, depressing the final rating.
An elegant, extraordinary tribute to the pleasures of the sensation coffee people call acidity. Here the acidity is robustly dry yet alive with a full, fragrant sweetness. Everything dances and rings in this coffee.
Another coffee whose assessment was dominated by roast issues. In this case, seven of eight panelists objected that the sample was roasted a bit too light. However, this complaint was offered as an aside to generally approving appraisals of the coffee itself. A general picture emerges of a well-prepared, clean coffee, sweet and balanced, with hints of fruit and nut. "Aroma of Spanish peanuts carries through to the flavor," concluded one panelist. "Pleasantly focused cup." Given the tone of approval in written comments, I can only assume that this coffee was not rated higher because it lacked power and dimension.
Reactions to this coffee ranged from enthusiasm to mild approval to ambivalence. The enthusiasts and mild approvers both tended to cite gently bright acidity, full body, and nut-toned aromatics. The enthusiasts felt the coffee brought power to the cup ("packs a punch"), while the approvers felt it didn't ("mild, mild, mild; sweet and soft cup"). The ambivalencers also honored the virtues of the coffee, but detected a slight shadow taint. One suggested that the sample was a bit "faded," another "baggy." Both adjectives suggest this otherwise meticulously clean coffee suffered very mild damage, perhaps moisture-related, during transport or storage.
A straightforward coffee, nicely balanced, clean and free of taint except (perhaps) a slight grassiness, a shadow note possibly encouraged by the rather light roast. Panelists noted nutty tones in the aroma and a hint of chocolate in the finish ("cocoa-like" specified one). Why wasn't this fundamentally centered, pleasant coffee not rated higher? Only one panelist registered enthusiasm. I suspect a lack of what some call power and I call dimension -- the sense of unnamed, resonant sensation opening behind the initial impression.
This Kauai peaberry cupped clean for most panelists, although three found a touch of herby or earthy hardness. The main complaint was lack of power: "mellow, well-balanced, [but] almost bland"; "flavor -- still waiting." Five of twelve panelists used the "bland" word. Nevertheless, several identified positive grace notes. "Dark chocolate overtones and very dry," said one.
The first of four Konas with identical scores of 79 and very similar flavor profiles. Overall assessments of this sample ranged from bland on the downside to balanced on the upside. Which side of the bland/balanced divide panelists settled on probably depended on their predispositions in regard to the Kona profile generally. Three panelists, including me, detected subtle but pleasant wine tones. Three called the acidity sweet, which I assume was praise as well as description. No taints or defects cited; consensus on body: medium.
The Kona song is the same, but this coffee sang it a little stronger and cleaner. No taints or weaknesses whatsoever were cited for this sample. Characterizations of overall flavor, which with the somewhat lower-rated Konas tended to be evenly divided between naysaying "bland" and yeasaying "balanced," here clearly settled on balanced. Occasional little pleasured exclamations turned up on the cupping forms: "very enjoyable"; "the nutty characteristics remained in the cup from beginning to end."
The clear winner in this cupping, as it was in the 1997 Kona Coffee Cultural Festival Cupping Competition. The reason: it clearly transcends the pleasantly mellow limits of the classic Kona profile. It displayed power, complexity, and an uncompromising, authoritative acidity, laid right on top of the usual soft, brightly sweet virtues of a typical Kona. Even the Kona-bashers on the panel liked this coffee. (Well, all but one.) Nobody raved, but there were lots of approving noises: "excellent," "very interesting, very clean on the palate," "nice depth." However, this excellent coffee might be too authoritative for those who like to slip into the softness of a more typical Kona. Lovers of Kona's sweeter, gentler side may prefer one of the less acidy profiles like the Guyer, Hamasaki, or Bayview Farms mill selections. The rather powerful acidity of this coffee casts doubt on the specialty coffee truism that only high growing altitudes (usually defined as over 4,000 feet) can produce solidly acidy coffees. The average elevation of the Fitzgerald Estate is around 1,600 feet. Apparently microclimate can mimic the conditions that, at higher altitudes, produce acidy profiles.