LATEST REVIEWS

Amazingly, behind the dampening effect of the aggressive dark roast a delicate, exquisite floral sweetness survives among the equally delicate charred, pungent notes. Think of a meadow that survived a forest fire.

Tremendous but balanced range and dimension. The acidity is full, deep, sweet, enveloped in the unifying matrix of the cup. Circumspect hints of fruit and flowers emerge in finish and aftertaste. As the coffee cools the slightest hint of ferment reveals itself behind the rich aromatics of the cup.

Pungent and woody out front, with winy, fruity undertones turned toward dry chocolate by the roast. A hint of flowers in the finish. Marred by an overly aggressive roast: Flat, charred tones verging on creosote sit on an otherwise expansive, complex profile.

An unusually full body gives the dominating pungency of this extreme dark roast solidity and substance. Some smoky notes and high-toned sweetness survive the rigors of the roast.

Lots of praise for the fruity nose, but the cup failed to excite and the aftertaste disappointed. Overall, panelists found little to either condemn or admire. I felt the coffee had been cleanly processed but still emerged flat.

A promising coffee shadowed by inconsistency. The good cups: sweet, full, deep, but alive with a pleasing shimmer of acidity. The bad: full and sweet but monotoned, flat, with a disturbing hint of astringency in aftertaste.

This complex, fruity, softly intense coffee unleashed a torrent of description from the panel. On aroma: "sweet cocoa, dried cherries"; "very strong & fruity." Descriptions of acidity included sweet, floral, fruity. Body: buttery yet light. Cup: fruity, sweet, "strong honey notes, very nice, very different." The odd intensity of this coffee, arresting yet restrained, disturbed two panelists: "Some may call this coffee pleasingly complex, but I find it a little wild," declared one. Count me in the pleasingly complex camp. I loved this coffee.

An unusual profile: sweet cedarish tones turn smokily chocolate in the finish. The chocolate sensation is superb: dry yet sweet, crisp and complex, lingering with husky richness in the aftertaste.

A full, rich, low-keyed cup. Stolid but not inert, with just enough acidity vibrating at the heart of the coffee to keep it lively.

The roast dominates the coffee, burning off sugars and turning the cup dryly pungent, full and hearty but not sweet. Crisp chocolate tones complicate the 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 classic Latin-American cup, dominated by an austere, powerful, full-throated acidity. The big, acidy profile is both impressive and monolithic, complicated only by barely felt floral tones, a sort of deeply held essence of flowers.

A rich, rounded acidity dominates with unaffected clarity from aroma through aftertaste. A cup in which nuance is not so much absent as irrelevant to the cup's essential candor.

A gently bright coffee, sweet and alive with spice and smoke in the aroma and floral innuendo in the cup. The floral tones linger in the aftertaste. Just enough resonance and depth to maintain authority.

The powerful acidity is like a whack across the palate. It doesn't allow much else to make an impression, although some cups hinted at a nutty sweetness. Perhaps the robust, dominating acidity is pleasure enough.

The bright Latin-American profile is complicated in the aroma by dry, pungently roasty nut tones. The cup displays unusual vegetal tones that reach toward floral, but fall a bit short.

An exquisitely refined chocolate sensation dominates the profile. The chocolate is at its richest and sweetest in aroma, then turns pleasantly dry in the cup and lingers crisply in aftertaste. This may be a bit of a one-note coffee, but it's a very elegant note.

A promising coffee dried out in the roast. The slightly charred bittersweetness edges toward chocolate but doesn't quite make it. Any remaining nuance appears to have been burned off.

The bittersweet paradox is less intense here than in the Jeremiah's Pick French Roast, with a bit more emphasis on the sweet side of the equation and a hint of dry, pruny fruit. The smoothest body of the eight French roasts I cupped, suggesting that the roast drove fewer fats out of the bean.

A pleasantly charred sweetness, buoyant and almost floral, dominates at first. As the cup cools the sweetness recedes and the bitter side of the dark-roast cup prevails.