LATEST REVIEWS

Delicate and soft, with a tart sweetness suggesting Meyer lemon. Supple, smooth, elegant.

Medium-bodied, sweet, with the typical wild, slightly fermented Yemen fruit tones, in this case suggesting overripe cherry, apricot, and melon. In the finish the fruit ferment reads as a sort of brandied, bittersweet chocolate. A slight astringency in the finish suggests that during storage this coffee faded a bit, as Yemens quickly do.

A low-toned but resonant, agreeable blend, crisp with tart, berry-toned fruit. Rather lean-bodied but rich in impression. The finish is sweet and balanced.

Low-key, mild, balanced to a fault. Sweet, with the round richness of a good Viennese blend, but ultimately unexpressive and rather inert.

A sweet, fruity Peru that suffers from musty, mildewed tones. The mild musty influence turns the fruit and floral notes pungent, dry, and bittersweet. Pleasantly so, aside from the rather heavy finish.

Moderately acidy, medium to full bodied, sweet, rich, balanced, mid-toned. Not much nuance but a sturdy cup with a juicy tickle of cleanly fermented fruit. Marred by a rather bitter finish.

Very sweet and very, very musty. Somewhere behind the malty, musty/mildew tones a rich, cherry-toned coffee lurks.

A wildly flawed but perversely interesting coffee. Dramatically uneven from cup to cup, with some cups dominated by a heavy and rather oppressive Mediterranean spice character (thyme or rosemary) and others displaying less oppressive and more pleasant floral and bitter fruit tones - in the latter case, imagine bitter-chocolate-covered jasmine petals. All of this aromatic peculiarity probably derives from a combination of mildly fermented fruit with a musty overlay acquired while the still fruit-encased beans were drying.

Delicate but rich. Medium body, sweet, round-toned acidity, and complex aromatics: In the aroma nut, floral, and cocoa-toned fruit, in the cup floral and spicy apple or pipe-tobacco notes. A cleanly balanced astringency enriches rather than flattens the finish.

Medium-bodied but expansively rich with complex mid to low notes. Cedar, nuts and dry fruit in the aroma; sweetly melodic fruit and floral notes in the cup. A dash of astringency in the finish tightens the fruit notes toward grapefruit.

Not your purist's Blue Mountain, but a fine, complex cup: rich, wine-like fruit, jasmine notes, and a hint of pleasantly rough mustiness that reads as a spicy chocolate

Full body and sweet, voluptuously rounded acidity. Low-toned, symphonically complex fruit suggests melon in aroma, spicy apricot in cup and finish. A slight hint of mustiness is coiled inside the richness, modestly lowering my rating of this otherwise classic Blue Mountain cup.

Hugely rich, big-bodied, low-toned. Roundly full apricot and peach notes in both aroma and cup. A slight hint of mustiness shadows aroma and finish, but the cup is grandly clean.

The roast turns the fruit high-toned and dryly pungent: cedar and spice in the aroma, sweet grapefruit in the cup. As the cup cools the fruit softens toward pear. Fine balance of sweet and dry tones in the cup, though the finish is rather heavily astringent.

The full-bodied, quietly rich cup with its low-toned fruit and dusk floral notes is classic Blue Mountain. But the aromatics are a bit faded and the cup shadowed by a hint of mustiness, both of which suggest that this coffee is perhaps a bit past its prime.

Rich but subdued, with a stealthy, understated sweetness. Some aromatic intrigue suggests apples and spice. The restrained aroma and rather flat finish compromises an otherwise roundly expansive Caribbean cup.

Smoky and richly heavy in its aromatics, but rather musty and monotoned in the cup. The musty tones, as they often do in Sumatras, hint at positive associations like spice and a sort of rough chocolate, but ultimately are too hard and unresilient to sustain too positive a reading.

Exquisitely balanced cup. Delicately acidy and sweet with clean, high-toned fruit that nods gently at chocolate. Restrained yet complex; precious. Green buyer Carl Leonard finds this coffee "exhibits all the best attributes [that this] origin should deliver."

Deeply, richly acidy, but without any edge unblunted by an enveloping, buffering sweetness. Surprisingly heavy body; a shimmering cocktail of pineapple, pear, citrus and floral notes in the nose. Neighbors green buyer and quality assurance manager Chris Palmer tags these elusive notes "apricot-like ... with a hint of spice."

A sweet Kenya, seductive rather than severe with its balanced acidity and delicate, quietly complex citrus and floral tones.