Green Reviews

Winner in the 2000 Specialty Coffee Association of Panama Cupping Event. Gently lively acidity rides a full, buttery body toward a splendid, complex, wine-toned finish.

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.

Soft, sweetly brisk, balanced, but edging on bland. "No flaws, but not many grace notes. Good, inoffensive cup," wrote one panelist. "Nice combo of sweet & floral ... just missing intensity," offered another.

The panel put this light-bodied coffee somewhere between bland and defective. Four panelists reported at least one cup of the several they sampled displayed defective aromatics, their descriptions ranging from soapy to beefy to sour. Apparently I was lucky: all of my cups were light-footed but sweetly acidy and agreeable.

Soft, low-key coffee with a twisty undercurrent of dark vegetative notes: wood or grass at worst; at best spice, tobacco or smoke. I found that, as the cup cooled, these notes sweetened pleasantly toward cocoa and cedar.

"Very pleasant, sweet, solid cup -- milk chocolate," reported one panelist. Another pursued the same theme with more enthusiasm: "sweet; soft, creamy, beautiful to behold, subtle yet complete, ... understated." Apparently too understated for the majority of the panelists, who felt the virtues of this coffee stopped with the impressive sweetness.

A splendidly smooth Harrar with persistent, understated power. There is plenty going on in the nose, particularly fruit, but the real strength of this coffee is its smooth, supple presence, particularly as it cools. "It is what it says it is -- friendly, honest, easy to read, pleasant & enjoyable, [though] not sophisticated," concluded one panelist. I loved this coffee, and found its resonant roundness sufficiently sophisticated, even elegant.

Complex and alive with nuance: twisty dried fruit tones ("dried apricot" specified one panelist; "prune" suggested another), spice, chocolate, berries. Sweet, rich, and utterly engrossing in its teasing labyrinth of aromatics.

A flawed coffee, but complex and intriguing in its faults. Every panelist except one cited defects, but the intrigue of the defects inspired them to refined description. "Potatoey, soapy," said one; "Old, wood-pulp flavor," another. I suspect that this pleasantly sweet, light coffee attracted some serious mustiness or mould during drying.

This rather wild coffee attracted a split vote. The chocolate-toned aroma impressed some panelists, but the cup turned rather rough and harsh as it cooled. Positive descriptions of aromatics ranged from fruit to chocolate. Negative or neutral: earthy, tobaccoey, "beef broth."

A complexly imbalanced cup. Virtually everyone agreed the aroma was pleasantly floral and fruity ("melon" one panelist specified) and the body robust, but the eccentric sensations that emerged in the cup as it cooled attracted a variety of vegetable and largely negative adjectives, among them grassy, herbal, wheaty, and tobaccoey.

Hints at the exhilaratingly light, bright, fruity, berryish delicacy of the finest Yemen Ismaili. Unfortunately that light, bright, fruity delicacy is muted by a baggy dullness.

Yemen coffees are famous for their wild unpredictability, from bag to bag and even cup to cup. This split-vote coffee appears to support that generalization. Several panelists discovered in it a variety of attractive, complexly nuanced Yemen virtues: chocolate, fruit, wine, berries. Others found it musty and flat, though still pleasantly rich.

Richly acidy, solid, straightforward, this mocha distinguished itself less by its fruity nuance than by its general dimension and boldness: "good intensity & depth," wrote one panelist; "good concentration & complexity," echoed another. Shimmers of fruit and chocolate simplify as the cup cools.

An absolutely remarkable coffee. Replete with glistening, kaleidoscopic nuance of fruit: clean, sweet, densely rich blueberry, wine, flowers, spice. Bright and spirited yet deeply resonant; balanced, complete. A coffee this complex and alive with fruit almost necessarily teeters on the edge of slight ferment, but most of the panelists could have cared less. It would be like criticizing Michelangelo because he left some chisel marks on the base of a sculpture.

A pleasantly sweet, balanced coffee free of vices but short on virtues: "sweet, not overpowering, but clean and bright," wrote one panelist. Best in the aroma, ornamented by agreeable innuendoes panelists variously described as herb, nut and spice. I found this coffee displayed an impressive chocolaty sweetness if approached with patience, but lacked range and dimension.

A richly high-toned, citrusy coffee shadowed by a faint defect. The aroma is sweet and floral, the cup brisk and lemony but dulled by a slight but persistent hardness. "Bright, juicy and citrusy, but cooled to dry and gritty," complained one panelist.

A complete, balanced Ethiopia: sweet, full but light-footed, with a soft, floral-toned acidity. The flowers and citrus are delicate but complex, shimmering over a touch of darker tones. "... A good beginner 's coffee; not too bold ... balanced," wrote one panelist. The beginner 's adjective probably indicates why this attractive coffee failed to provoke a higher rating: It is a bit underpowered, fading quickly in the aftertaste. But I suspect that many American coffee drinkers will love this gentle, roundly nuanced coffee.

This Yirgacheffe soared straight out of the pack, powered by flowers and spice in the aroma that carried into the cup with charm, depth and vivacity. Not powerful, but certainly intense, the complexity of nuance provoked enthusiastic (if decidedly non-technical) words of tribute: "Wow," wrote one; "sweet & intense -- awesome!" exclaimed another.

Panelists described a pleasant Ethiopia coffee with hints of citrus, spice, and perhaps something less pleasant: a faint but disturbing undertone described by one panelist as metallic, by another as medicinal, another as baggy or ropelike. Perhaps a slight fault in the drying.