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Carbon tones overlay the sweet fruit fragrances of this dark-roasted Kenya, dampening but not obliterating them. A remarkable body and dimension open underneath the carbon, assuring a long, complex finish.

The Kenya wine tones are lighter here, more Bordeaux than Burgundy. The profile is also simpler than in many Kenyas, but the high, singing tones of the acidity please until the aftertaste, when they turn slightly astringent.

Another flower-laced Yirgacheffe, shimmering with rose and lavender notes. Enough acidity to sustain the fruit and flower innuendoes, but rather light-bodied. Some carbon thinness seems to emerge as the coffee cools. Depending on whether you find the very pronounced flower tones a delight or a distraction, this coffee could merit anywhere from an 80 to a 100. I (roughly) split the difference.

The only Zimbabwe in the cupping. Lighter and drier than the best Kenya, with less dimension in the cup and a somewhat more attenuated finish. The pleasure is in the superb top of this coffee, both aroma and acidity levitating with dry fruit and cinnamon tones.

For a Kenya, displays a relatively restrained acidity. In another coffee this gentleness might be a fault, but here it reads as understatement, a polite permission for the complexity and echoing dimension of the coffee to emerge without getting upstaged by acidy dramatics.

Floral and vanilla tones hover in the high-toned acidity, exciting without distracting. The acidity is authoritative despite its floral delicacy and the body surprisingly substantial, although the entire profile loses momentum in the finish.

The characteristically powerful, Burgundy-like Kenya acidity dominates, but if you're patient an immense and subtle richness opens beneath it, assuring a long finish and a resonant aftertaste.

One more terrific, full-bore Kenya. The rich, winy acidity carries us up and out, expanding the boundaries of the profile and revealing the usual mouth-filling resonance at the heart of the coffee.

This coffee arrived pre-ground (not available whole bean), perhaps accounting for its flatness in nose and cup, although some herbal or prune notes survive in the thin, carbon-toned acidity.

For such a relatively light roast, not particularly acidy. In fact, once past the classically rich, fragrant nose, rather flat. Perhaps the coffee arrived a bit stale. Full-bodied enough to please those who like to ride the classic American roast profile while relegating acidity to the back seat.

Given the medium roast, the carbon notes here are a bit of a surprise. Fortunately, the pungent sweetness also characteristic of darker roasts gives the burned, carbon notes some support, and the acidity holds its own until the finish, when it fades into the carbon.

The rest of the taste profile plays peek-a-boo around dominating carbon tones in this very dark roasted coffee. Nevertheless, the pungent sweetness that constitutes the upside of darker roasts prevails, particularly in the cup.

A light-medium-roasted blend with power: The aroma is intense and classically acidy. For a coffee so lightly roasted the body is full, and the acidity teases and shimmers before emerging clearly in the finish.

This classic medium-dark coffee gives us solid, mouth-filling dark-roast pungency, though the carbon notes seem to co-opt its sweetness. Some acidity survives the roast, and fills out the top of the profile nicely.

The acidity doesn't immediately reveal itself in the deep, mouth-filling richness of this coffee, emerging most clearly in the powerful finish. A coffee that, in its understated complexity, seems considerably greater than its parts.

The body is full, the taste richly pungent. The carbon tones permeate, having definitively chased the acidity south, but they're rich, complex carbon tones, rather than the thin kind that whine at you from the cup.

This coffee is so complex at the top that it positively levitates, alive with sweet, light vanilla tones. In the finish whatever is left of the body vanishes, the vanilla tones fade, but the sweetness lingers.

This coffee gets better as it goes, probably owing to its heavy body. The dark tones of the aroma modulate with increasing power through the cup to a complex finish.

An exquisitely balanced traditional American-style coffee. The acidity is dry without astringency, alive with slight fruit or wine notes. Enveloped in the matrix of the body, it is always present but never dominant.

An intense coffee, particularly in the nose, but without grace notes or much resonance. Carbon tones dominate, but allow some sweetness and pungency to balance the cup.