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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.
The rather aggressive dark roast simplifies the coffee, intensifying the bitter tones, dampening the sweet, and turning hints of chocolate toward spice. The aftertaste is attractively bittersweet but thin.
A fine sweet, roasty nose with hints of spice and leather. In the cup the spice and animal notes deepen toward earth and mustiness. The relatively light roast allows a touch of acidity to brighten the cup, but fails to develop the underlying sweetness.
Replete with earth, leather, and vaguely animal and forest notes. In structure leans more toward the bitter side of bittersweet, but blooms with chocolate opulence for a moment toward the finish.
Very low-toned, smooth, with a dry, fruity bittersweetness that, with slow drinking, settles toward chocolate. A slight, musty astringency shows up in the aftertaste, but the pleasantly pruny bittersweetness prevails.
A hint of cinnamon in the nose and cocoa in the finish, but the main pleasure here is the underlying structure: low-toned, rich, dry, balanced, and opulently, almost meatily, full-bodied.
Rich, sweet and clean throughout, with a chewy fullness and a tickle of acidity in the cup, an excellent balance of sweetness and bitterness in underlying structure, and a gentle fade toward chocolate in aftertaste.
A superb Sulawesi: rich, big-bodied but smooth, with a shimmer of acidity animating its heart. Elegant balance of bitter and sweet tones, fine range from middle to bottom of the profile, a hint of flowers, and deep, dry plum-wine fruitiness.
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.
The acidity is definitely flattened. Unfortunately, everything else except body is flattened too, including sweetness. Pleasant tickles of flowers and spicy fruit survive, echoing in a Tums-toned emptiness. I treated each cup of an acidy, explosively floral- and fruit-toned Guatemala (originally rated over 90) with a little pre-measured packet of Coffee Tamer acid-buffering agent. The […]
Just enough sweetness and caramel softness survive the dark roast to balance its charred pungency. A hint of something fruity shimmers toward the top of the profile — I want to call it pineapple. The motto of Silver Canyon Coffee, a small-batch wholesale roaster founded in 1985, is “Pure Quality.”
A touch of sweet but acidy brightness survives the steam treatment, together with restrained floral and dry, wine-toned fruit notes. The understated but brisk cup is marred by a dull, salty sensation that intensifies as the coffee cools. Treated to remove acidity by a “patented, natural steaming process involving no harmful chemical solvents.” Trader Joe […]
Not acidy, but definitely dry, with a pleasantly malty, cocoaish finish and a rich little tickle of balancing sweetness. Quite agreeable, but haunted by a hint of rubbery flatness. A blend from Café La Semeuse, a much admired Swiss roaster. Roasted in Switzerland. A sticker on the bag reads “Never Bitter.”
Balanced, round, smooth, full-bodied, with a dry, pruny heaviness to the fruit and a seductive cocoa finish. A bit more sweetness would make this mouthfilling coffee a very impressive entrant in the low-acid sweepstakes. Mysore Plantation is a wet-processed coffee (the fruit is removed before the beans are dried) from the district where, in around […]
Flat, dull, with a heavy, tongue-coating bitterness. The only identifiable flavor note is rubber. Beans are coated after roasting with acid-neutralizing agents, including potassium (but not including aluminum). “Full flavor — less acid!” exclaims the bag copy.
Sweet, caramelly and resonant in the nose, but a smoky pungency dominates the cup and turns unpleasantly rubbery as the cup cools. Blue de Brasil is an organically grown estate coffee. A ‘Roma Roasters is a quality-oriented, small-batch roaster located just north of the San Francisco Bay Area.
The charred tones of the aggressive dark roast are relieved by a substantial sweetness and twisty, musty tones that publicists often label chocolate. They aren ‘t chocolate, but they can be pleasantly intriguing, as they are here. Beans are coated after roasting with acid-neutralizing agenMonsooned coffees have been exposed deliberately to moisture-laden monsoon winds in […]
Crisp rather than bright, dry rather than acidy, bittersweet, cocoaish, elegant but limited. From a well-run farm in the relatively new growing region of Cerrado. Martinez Fine Coffees is known for its elegant packaging and respectful presentation of single-origin coffees.
A dominating roast flushes out most nuance, but imparts a pleasantly dry, cocoaish character to an elegantly crisp cup. Gently austere.
Light, dryly fruity, complicated by pleasant cocoa tones. Simple, ingenuous, agreeable. Not sweet, but stays on the gentle side of bitter.
