LATEST REVIEWS
We have published thousands of coffee reviews and espresso reviews since 1997. The reviews below appear in reverse chronological order by review date. Older reviews may no longer accurately reflect current versions of the same coffee. To search for a specific roaster, origin or coffee use the Advanced Search Function.
Intense but balanced acidity, medium body, and tartly sweet fruit notes --berry and citrus -- that soften toward chocolate in the finish. Director of Coffee Geoff Watts praises this coffee's "grace and completeness."
An almost impossibly sweet, smooth dark roast, cleanly roasty, without bitterness. Complex but almost subliminal hints of meaty fruit, apricot perhaps, with patience suggest chocolate.
Powerfully but sweetly acidy, rich, with distinct red wine and cherry tones. Seductive but challenging.
Relatively light roasted but deep toned, with big body, rich, cabernet-like acidity, and a black-cherry fruit that saturates the profile from bottom notes to top. Timothy's Director of Coffee Bill Herne praises its "complex flavor and sweet finish."
Relatively light bodied but intensely dry and richly astringent, with an austere pineapple- and grapefruit-toned fruit. The finish, like the cup, is astringent but exhilarating. Director of Coffee Geoff Watts admires this Kenya's "pristine character" and its "dynamic and elegant acidity."
Rich and dryly acidy with a deep, backgrounded sweetness. Mildly fermented wine tones turn maraschino cherry chocolate in the long, complex finish. The ferment tones contribute splendidly in this blend, which improves as it cools.
A rich, low-key, satisfying cup dominated by an unusual complex of flavor notes associated with coffee from trees of the heirloom Bourbon variety. This is a dry fruit character that suggests wine at one moment, at another tart berries, at another pipe tobacco, at still another a roasty but sweet chocolate. Owner and green buyer Philip Anacker cites its "gentle acidity and distinct flavors."
The balanced dark roast is so tactful that even some acidity survives. Shimmering inside the dominant roastiness are tantalizing shimmers of flowers, a gentle, generalized fruit, and rounded citrus notes, grapefruit perhaps. A slight astringency in the long, rich finish reduced the rating for me, but other coffee drinkers may find this sensation bracing.
The roast nicely develops the clean, classically simple Costa Rica profile, rounding the sweet but authoritative acidity and turning a hint of fruit tartly pineapple-toned. Torreo owner Eric Patrick finds "floral [and] rich Burgundy" notes in this versatile cup.
Sweetly and robustly roasty. Musty tones, probably from the Sulawesi, hover between a sort of spice and a pleasantly dry chocolate, contributing an edge of intrigue to the pleasant balance of roastiness and rounded acidity. Roastmaster Brandon Riggs cites this blend's "tangy brightness and ... smooth body."
Sweet, round, balanced, with a striking complex of aromatics that reads as wine or spicy fruit, figs perhaps. The finish is rich, winy, and slightly astringent.
Reader Ben Anderson finds this Blue Mountain "phenomenal," a "yardstickexample of the variety ... extremely complex and proportioned." Certainly a fine example of theBlue Mountain profile, far better than any production roast Blue Mountain I have cupped overthe past few years: balanced, with resonant, bell-toned dimension and classic fruit notes of pure essential coffee character.
Reader Jim Beckham of Athens, Texas reports he drinks "about a pound a week ofthis espresso. I frequently try others, but I always come back to this great blend." I might comeback to it too. Dry fruit, chocolate and leather notes, fat body, smooth, round, completelywithout bitterness. In milk excellent authority: rich, developing from dry chocolate in small dairyto milk chocolate in large.
Reader Derick Miller called Graffeo to my attention, testifying that this groupof three small in-store roasters produces "great coffee." I found this light-roasted version of theGraffeo blend acidy but sweet, rich, with a broad flavor range including delicate orange and floralnotes. Both aroma and finish showed a slight bitter edge which rounded and softened as the cupcooled.
Reader Peter Lynagh nominated this coffee. I found it brightly acidy but richlysweet, with opulently high-toned lemon and orange notes. Simplifies a bit in the finish, leavingbehind a pucker of astringency.
"Great crema - best espresso I've ever had," writes Mandy Elion of Pasadena,California, who rates Supreme Bean espressos 90 - 94. This all-organic espresso blend isbalanced, richly and roundly roasty in the demitasse, with undertones of fruity chocolate. Atingle of astringency in the finish is invigorating rather than rough. In small milk comes acrossheavy with fruity chocolate tones; in large milk sweetly and roundly fruity.
Reader Liz Snyder of Newark, Ohio rates this blend 95 - 100 on the basis of an evaluation thatmakes up in enthusiasm for what it may lack in technical detail: "I love [this coffee]. It tastes SOgood." I evaluated the Wiener Melange as espresso. In the demitasse I found it full and round inbody and heavily bittersweet in flavor, complicated by dry chocolate tones. In small milk itremained dry, smoky, chocolaty and rather heavy. In larger milk it came fully into its own,softening but still dominating with fruit- and chocolate-nuanced authority.
A classic medium-roasted Latin-American cup, acidy but distinctly sweet andfree of bitterness. The acidity displays some pleasant complication: tangy, grapefruity, perhapsspicy. Nominating reader John Schulz of Northglenn, Colorado rates his sample 90 - 94, findingit "rich and complex, with subtle winey notes." I tasted no wine notes in the sample I broughthome, but wine - sweet fermented fruit - notes are quite common in contemporary Colombiacoffees and doubtless appear in other batches of the Millstone presentation.
Reader Ben Anderson calls this coffee "fantastic." That familiar adjectivefreshens up when applied to Sulawesi coffees, whose unexpected forest and fruit notes often doseem to express a sort of adventurous coffee fantasy. When hot, this Sulawesi displayed a richcup with a fine balance of acidity, sweetness and roastiness plus - the Sulawesi factor - carnally rich fruit notes reminiscent of cantaloupe. I started with a rating of over 90, but as the cup cooleda slight salty astringency in the finish lowered my assessment.
Reader Derick Miller called Graffeo to my attention, testifying that this groupof three small in-store roasters produces "great coffee." I brewed this dark-roasted version of theGraffeo blend as espresso and found it medium-bodied, smooth in mouthfeel, sweet but crisplyroasty. In small milk the bittersweetness read as a dry, smoky chocolate; in larger milk as adelicately sweet but rather dilute chocolate.