Supermarket Reviews

Those who value a roundly assertive Kenya with rich, complexly stated sweetness enveloping tart fruit notes. An almost shockingly low price for a Kenya this distinctive and pleasing.

Sweetly and gently pungent, quietly complex. Dark chocolate, cedar, hazelnut, plum in aroma and cup. Round, backgrounded but softly resonant acidity; lightly syrupy mouthfeel. Hints of dark chocolate, cedar and plum all linger faintly but persistently in a sweet-toned finish.

Crisply sweet, delicate, balanced but simple. Molasses, raisin, freshly cut fir, a hint of hazelnut in aroma and cup. Crisp, though rather muted, acidity; silky, but very light, mouthfeel. Sweet in the finish, though drying and rather woody.

Cloying raw nut and vaguely spicy wood dominate in both aroma and cup, with some suggestions of roasted cacao nib and raisin. Simple, bittersweet acidity; syrupy, though rather inert, mouthfeel. Flavor smooths out a bit in the finish, with a little more cacao and raisin and a little less raw nut and wood.

A quiet, sweetly rounded coffee. Cherry and a hint of chocolate in the aroma, softly acidy and rather full-bodied in the cup, with candied walnut, cacao and pipe tobacco notes. Simple, gently rich finish.

The reader who nominated this canned supermarket coffee describes it as "not a harsh acid coffee. The taste comes through. Try it." I did, and found it a good though not great medium-roasted Colombia coffee: robustly acidy with decent complementing sweetness, full-bodied, but with little complexity or nuance. I agree that the acidity is not "harsh," but I did find it just a shade too overbearing and perhaps a touch sour.

Sweet, balanced, restrained. The fruit and vegetal cocoa notes are faint but pleasant, the roasty tones understated.

Delicate but authoritative, richly and sweetly acidy. The classic fruit/floral aromatics lean toward chocolate in the aroma, fruit in the cup, and carry through cleanly into the long, sweet finish.

Rather intensely acidy, with clean floral and wine-toned fruit notes that deepen toward a bright chocolate in the finish. The acidity is clean and free of astringency, but may be too aggressive for some coffee drinkers.

Low-toned but complex. A floral sweetness is supported by a slightly roasty pungency and a touch of mustiness, the agreeable kind that gives weight and character to the cup and hints at dry chocolate.

Understated to the point of self-effacement. The aroma is subdued but sweet and enlivened with a tickle of dry, fruit-toned chocolate. In the cup round, rather deeply dimensioned, with just enough acidity to keep the cup subtle rather than banal.

Gently and sweetly acidy with crisp, pear-like fruit tones that round toward sweet cocoa in the finish. The cup is shadowed by an underlying astringent bitterness.

Cloyingly sweet and sharply musty - imagine the taste of mildewed nuts left sitting in a damp basement closet for a few weeks. The musty tones hint at cocoa but don't come through.

A rather striking dark-roast coffee in its disconnected extremes of abandoned sweetness and charred bitterness. The only relief from this (to some exhilarating) contradiction are dry cocoa notes in the finish.

Woody, dominated by a rather thin, roasty bitterness. Attenuated floral notes play at the top of the profile, dry cocoa-toned fruit toward the middle, but a rather shallow roast taste dominates.

The aroma is sweet, rather full in dimension, the cup pungent and roasty with a balancing hint of acidity. Limited but satisfying.

When hot, an impressive dark-roast cup: balanced, sweet modulating to bittersweet in the finish; dry, prune-like fruit complications with a pleasant roasty bite. As the cup cools, however, distinct (and rather unpleasant) rubber tones emerge.

About half of a classic American breakfast cup. The acidy brightness, gently complicated by a touch of nut-toned sweetness, is there. Nevertheless, shallow in dimension and limited in range, with a hint of musty, grainy robusta lurking not very far beneath the traditional brightness.

The intentions of this blend announce themselves in the nose with extremely roasty, explicitly burned notes. In the cup the charred tones fade, giving way to a rather neutral woodiness with sweet undertones that suggest pungent spice.

Flat, feeble, tea-like aroma. The cup is sweet but the acidity is weak-kneed and a bit sour. A pleasant hint of fruit, but not enough to save the cup from its general dull listlessness.