Peaberry Reviews

Pungent, roast-influenced citrus reads as grapefruit in aroma and cup, supported by backgrounded aromatic wood and leafy earth notes. Round, resonant acidity, deep natural sweetness, syrupy body. The grapefruit and earth notes carry into a long, opulent finish.

An intense cup. Pungent herb and cedar mingle with a soft fruit in aroma and cup. Full body, smooth mouthfeel. The fruit sweetens toward chocolate in the cup, balancing the sharper herb and cedar notes. The chocolate persists to soften the long, dry finish.

The aroma is delicate, balanced, with nut, molasses, moist pipe tobacco, a hint of tart fruit. Soft acidity, silky mouthfeel, quietly distinctive flavor: continued nut and molasses notes, a hint of fir. The fruit notes are pungent and deep: black current, black cherry. A dry fruit-toned finish stays on the rich side of astringent.

Both Ken (93) and co-cupper Andy Newbom (92) admired the deep, profoundly fruit-toned character of this coffee. "Very sweet, richly but discreetly fruity coffee" for Ken, displaying "butter, honey, nut, aromatic wood, night flowers, a hint of herb." Andy read more excitement and less discretion in the fruit character, in which (prepare yourself) "a menage a trois of raisins, dates and butterscotch got together with tangerine, clover honey and some lemons and raspberries and threw the sexiest block part ever." Incidentally, sweetly bright acidity, "round and juicy" (Andy) mouthfeel, and a finish that resolved the profile with profound sweetness and "the slightest hint of savory complexity" (also Andy).

Rich, complex fruit aroma, intensely sweet and full. Roundly balanced acidity, smooth body, with a hint of floral and fruit tones expanding in the cup: sweet citrus, berries, currants. A mildly astringent mouthfeel carries into the lightly bittersweet chocolate-toned finish.

Crisp, gently bright aroma: fir, blackberry. Gentle but rich in the cup: delicate acidity, medium to light body, dry yet juicy berry notes, flowers, a hint of chocolate. Berry notes saturate the dry, elegant finish.

Soft, sweet-toned aroma: crisp black cherry, honey, a hint of flowers. In the cup rich acidity, syrupy mouthfeel, pungent but lush: dry berry, hints of flowers, flowering grass, herb. The dry finish remains on the rich side of astringent.

Pure, refreshing coffee. Sweetly acidy and honey-toned in the aroma, with floral and coffee fruit (tart cherry) notes. In the cup softly acidy, delicate in mouthfeel, crisp but very sweet in structure, with continued notes of tart coffee cherry, honey and flowers, together with a slight, deepening butterscotch-like pungency. In the finish the sweetness fades, but the fundamental flavor notes persist far into the long finish.

Low-toned and nut-like aroma with a hint of chocolate. In the cup round, simple but resonant, with fruit that carries hints of chocolate, red wine, orange perhaps. Rich and sweet in the short finish, a bit heavy in the long.

A simple, rich, deeply dimensioned dark-roasted cup. Sweetly roasty in the aroma with semi-sweet chocolate notes. In the cup the roast continued to dominate with mildly charred wood tones overlaying semi-sweet chocolate and perhaps some dry berry notes. Rich, clean finish with continued dry chocolate notes.

The aroma displays a fruit complicated by aromatic wood tones that co-cupper Rodger Owen associated with pine and Ken with cedar. The body is light, the mouthfeel bordering on thin, the flavor delicate and tartly sweet, with sustained aromatic wood notes. Both Ken and Rodger found the finish clean, simple and rather short.

In the aroma this relatively light-roasted coffee is caramelly but smoky, with cherry and sweet pipe tobacco notes. In the cup it is delicate yet robust and very sweet, with a smoothly rich acidity, heavy body, and a giddy complexity anchored around wine and cherry tones with hints of smoke and milk chocolate. The finish is clean, long and sweet.

A tribute to the upside of slightly fermented fruit tones in coffee. Sweet and completely free of bitterness or saltiness, the ferment comes across as sweetly orange-toned in the aroma with a crisp hint of cedar, in the cup as a lushly ripe papaya- and peach-toned fruitiness that leans toward chocolate but never quite surrenders its tropical juiciness.

Understated but quietly distinctive. The aroma is round, caramelly and (quite literally) buttery; patience may turn up little cedar and chocolate revelations as well. The butter and caramel notes carry into the cup, where the fruity chocolate intensifies. The short finish is deep, sweet and rich; a memory of chocolate resurfaces in the long.

Sweet, low-toned, deep, to turn metaphorical, a quiet, smiling, radiant coffee. In the aroma caramel and peach-toned fruit. The peach notes carry into the cup, joined by exhilarating suggestions of flowers and a hint of chocolate. The chocolate turns more explicit in the fine, rich finish.

This coffee displayed a very slight "old crop" (faded, musty-mildew) character that caused co-cupper Christy Thorns to drop her score to 86. Ken (90) felt this shadow defect hardly mattered, however, given the cup's "almost effervescent delicacy, with tickles of sweet cocoa, pipe-tobacco and caramel." Christy offered a similar reading of the cup, but with less enthusiasm: "Although a hint of mustiness somewhat masks the sweetness of the cup, tobacco, cedar and black pepper give this coffee some charm."

Opens with a very sweet, very intense but balanced aroma complicated by apples and flowers. In the cup the gentle acidity subordinates itself to a melodic sweetness and a rich, deeply dimensioned chocolate- and apple-toned fruit. Lyric and seductive.

The aroma is high-toned but pungent, laced with caramel, cantaloupe and leather. In the cup a sweet, wine-toned fruit leads, with richly malty, bracingly bitter tones opening up behind. The bitterness dissolves in the long, clean, chocolate-toned finish.

Variants on citrus shimmer through this buoyant, sweetly acidy cup: lemon and cocoa in the aroma, lemon and pink grapefruit in the cup. The finish is sweetly tart.

A delicate acidity is gently rounded though not obscured by a marvelously tactful dark roast, which also turns the fruit richly chocolate-toned. The chocolate nuance weaves through the profile consistently from aroma through finish.