Estates Reviews
We found 1694 reviews for Estates. The reviews below appear in reverse chronological order by review date. Older reviews may no longer accurately reflect current versions of the same coffee.
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.
Panelist opinion was divided whether to call this Limu bland or (as one panelist put it) "comfortable." Most agreed that the aroma tended toward vanilla, berry and chocolate, that the acidity was bright and sweet, and that the cup was agreeably sweet but underpowered, perhaps shadowed by slight vegetal tones.
I found myself at odds with most of the panel on this balanced, low-key coffee. What I read (and enjoyed) as pleasant chocolate tones others apparently took as earthy or faintly dirty notes. Or so it seems. But everyone enjoyed the deeply dimensioned, nut-toned aroma.
A suavely understated dark roast with a tickle of spice and chocolate at its heart. The pungent bite of the dark roast is muted and enveloped in sweetness, the finish rich and chocolate-toned.
Superb aroma: rich, acidy, alive with nut and vanilla overtones. In the cup less range but still pleasingly high-toned: acidy, buoyant, and bright with hints of flowers and fruit.
A dry, powerful, authoritative cup, rich but not sweet. The ringing energy of the acidity and the substantial body are close to monumental, though lovers of delicacy and nuance may be disappointed.
When hot, the cup is light-bodied but smooth, with a touch of levitating floral-toned fruit that turns sweetly chocolate in the finish. As the cup cools the fruit deepens toward wine and even more distinctly chocolate tones.
Close to the great Blue Mountains of the past: balanced, round, very rich, almost bouillon-like, with a slight, spicy effervescence tickling at the heart of the cup. Regrettably, a faint, almost undetectable hardness or storage-related fading shadows the otherwise superb cup.
An unexceptional but comfortable Pacific profile: pungent but not sharp, round, medium-bodied, with a hint of dry, wine-like fruit as the cup cools.
A hard, nasty ferment mars an otherwise sweetly rich profile.
Either an over-aggressive roast or a drying-related defect in the green coffee deadens a promising profile. Satisfying body and richness, but little sweetness or nuance.
Clean and elegant aroma with a shimmer of vanilla. In the demitasse complex, exciting, but not entirely balanced. The contrast of pungent sharpness and underlying caramelly sweetness is dramatic but stark, and carries the coffee precariously toward a rich but slightly astringent aftertaste. Blooms beautifully in milk, softening without losing authority and revealing deep, dry, bittersweet chocolate tones.
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.
Judged on aroma alone, this coffee easily would top the ratings. Intense, deeply dimensioned nut tones soar with an exhilarating sweetness. In the cup, however, things quiet down quickly. A heavy, low-toned acidity dominates a profile complicated by interesting spicy and smoky notes, but without much lift or dimension.
Some cups display a muted but disturbingly hard off-taste, probably a fault in the drying. The clean cups are low-key, sweet, with a pleasant, round earthiness and excellent resonance or dimension.
A fresh, clean, delightfully natural sweetness is balanced by a drier but still fruity pungency. A fine and distinctive coffee, though memorable more for what it gives out front than what it insinuates. The profile is immediate and pleasing rather than deep.
Complete and classic. Dry and acidy, but the acidity is held inside a deep, resonant matrix and complicated by richly wine-tinged fruit tones. Sweetens exquisitely in the finish. The medium body is smooth and buttery.
Comments on this coffee focused almost exclusively on the issue of roast: This particular sample was roasted considerably darker than the other samples in the cupping. This dark style, atypical for cupping purposes, was deliberate: The very experienced Coffee Review roaster concluded that this coffee came across best at a darker roast. However, six of eight panelists complained that the roast was too dark to permit fair evaluation. For this reason we are not publishing a rating for this coffee. The sample certainly was clean and free of defect. Whether it manifested enough power to stand up to a darker roast is another question.
A quietly dramatic coffee with a long development, in which a clear if understated acidity gives way to a sudden sweet lift in the cup, and nutty, pungent (perhaps smoky) notes are balanced by vanilla sweetness. All of the complex gestures remain in balance, and a silky smoothness envelops even the potentially sharp pungency.