Reviews for The Roasterie
Intense, high-toned aroma, complex but tightly knit: lemon, dry berry, flowers (tea rose?), milk chocolate. The acidity is powerful but roundly balanced, the body surprisingly full, the flavor explosive: rose water, sweet pipe tobacco, chocolate, all enveloped in a lemony richness. Lemon and chocolate notes carry into the finish, where they soften and enliven a slight astringency.
A tribute to the tartly sweet, invigorating sensation coffee insiders call acidity. In the aroma richly fruity and orange-toned; in the cup giddy with rich, high-toned acidity laced with fruit suggesting oranges and tart cherries. The acidity softens and sweetens voluptuously in the finish.
The low-toned aroma is charged with cocoa and spicy fruit (apricot?) notes. In the cup a dry-yet-sweet, almost sugary fig-like character dominates, enlivened by a soft shimmer of acidity. The finish is sweet, rich and long with chocolate and dry fruit notes.
Intense aromatics of coffee blossom (imagine jasmine, gardenia and lime), laced with milk chocolate, dried orange peel, bees' wax and lemon. While many Yirgacheffes display flourishes of mint, here oregano is the more dominant herbal note. If this coffee is big and robust in fragrance and aroma, the cup is quiet and a bit timid - a contradiction that adds to the appeal of this delicately balanced coffee. (Lindsey Bolger)
High-toned fruit - pineapple or tamarind - in the aroma. In the cup medium bodied and mid-toned, with refined, sweetly smooth acidity and subtle, subdued notes of nut, orange and tamarind.
The aroma is roasty and quite sweet, with high-toned cedar and chocolate notes. Round and full in the cup, with a buttery mouthfeel and a balance of gentle roast tones and a tickle of sweet, fruit-toned acidity.
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.
Cinnamon, pumpkin, chocolate smeared on leather in the aroma. In the cup overripe, lush, half-rotting fruit and carnal melon tones eventually suggest chocolate, which sweetens and rounds in the long, surprisingly clean finish.
John Weaver: "Nice medium body with bright, sparkly flavor notes. Tangy flavor" (81). Ken particularly liked the "tangy" character: "sweetly fruity, with some floral complication, rounded rather than repressed by the roast. Slightly astringent finish" (87).
John Weaver was not excited: "Medium-bodied, a little flat. Some good wine tones with a little citric flavor" (80). Ken, who tends to value nuance, rewarded this coffee for its "sweet roastiness complicated by smoky, fruity chocolate tones that carry from cup through the mildly astringent finish" (85).
Sweet, low-key, gentle. Displays muted musty/mildew tones that, combined with the essential sweetness of the coffee, read agreeably as malt or dry spice.
A delightfully sweet, balanced, deeply dimensioned coffee complicated by clean cocoa tones in the nose and floral and fruit notes in the cup.
Superb range: delicate floral top notes, sweet cherryish middle, bitter, muskily animal bottom. A full but subtle sweetness prevails in the cup, a rich bitterness in the aftertaste. As exotic and complex as a gamelon performance.
A classic Central-America coffee dominated by a richly powerful acidity, a fat body, and a round, sweet, chocolaty finish.
An almost symphonic coffee. Nuance stretches across the profile: floral notes at the top, winy, dry fruit in the middle, and a smoky pungency at bottom. Sweet, cedarish notes tend to dominate in aroma and aftertaste, but in the cup fruit and flowers upstage everything else.
A blend that in its completeness is a tribute to the blender's art. Solid without drama, displaying excellent range and a fine balance between sweetness and (I would guess) Indonesia pungency. Mouth-filling, close to creamy body, cleanly resounding aftertaste.
A sweet-toned acidity, a sort of subdued brightness, enlivens this medium-bodied coffee. The sweetness reads with considerable complexity: as vanilla in the nose and fruit-toned chocolate in the cup. Once these nuances have pleased us, however, nothing further turns up. No depth, no teasing secrets. Still, the elegantly complex top notes make this coffee one of the standouts in the cupping.
A rather distinctive coffee marked by a clear, winy acidity that some would call bright and others sharp. I lean toward bright with rough edges. The acidity is so dominating that I had a difficult time reading the body: I finally concluded medium. And the broken record rasps: intriguing first impression but not much behind it.
