Coffee growing regions strung along the rugged Andes from central Colombia south through Peru have much in common: high growing altitudes; a reliance on sturdy, simple varieties of arabica like typica and caturra; small-holding farmers whose struggle to produce fine coffee is challenged by daunting transportation problems and sporadic social and political conflict. As in so many other places in
Starting with Cans: Mainstream Supermarket Coffees
True, not all of the coffees reviewed this month came in cans and the term "mainstream" may be ambiguous, but all definitely were purchased retail at supermarkets and most should be available in any large, well-stocked grocery in the United States. All were sold pre-ground with the exception of Eight O'Clock Coffee, the traditional supermarket whole-bean alternative for cost-conscious
Award-Winning Coffees of Central America 2006
For me, the most enjoyable aspect of this sampling of prize winners from Central American green coffee competitions was experiencing the pride and passion of the small North America roasters who purchased these coffees and roasted them. All of the samples arrived impeccably fresh, and with a couple of exceptions all were roasted within the classic full city range, which is to say the roast was
Price, Quality and Value: Questioning Competition Coffees
[In the following piece Kevin Knox, at various times coffee buyer for Starbucks and Allegro Coffee and well-known coffee writer, takes a controversial view of the new specialty coffee phenomenon of green coffee competitions and Internet auctions. His comments are aimed at roasting companies and green coffee buyers, but Coffee Review readers and consumer buyers of fine roasted coffees will find his
Holiday Blends and Other Gift Coffees
Creating special blends and offerings for the winter holidays is a long-standing coffee tradition, and, well, a cool retail opportunity for roasters. It's a natural: nights are long, mornings are dark, days are cold, and coffee is a good thing. Coffee roasters tend to meet the winter holiday challenge in several ways. One is crafting special holiday blends, usually going for heavy body and
Readers’ Choice Espressos
Well, special readers. The majority of the espressos reviewed this month were nominated by the roasting companies that produced them. I assume that a roaster knows what his best products are, so it also may be logical to expect these espressos to impress. Most did. Of the twenty-eight we tasted, nine scored 90 points or better. Here are reviews of some of the highest rated or most
Experimenting with Tradition: Naturally Flavored Coffees
In beverages, there are added flavorings - and then there are added flavorings. On one hand are traditional, natural flavorings: anise seed in many liqueurs and spirits or jasmine flowers in jasmine tea. On the other are newer flavorings, those that have been pouring in endless invention out of the chemistry lab of pop-modernity. Most flavorings added to whole-bean coffees fall into the latter
Now or Never: Special Reserve Coffees
Special seasonal offerings of small lots of exceptional coffees are a sure sign of coffee's coming of age as true specialty beverage. These coffees, often described using wine-influenced language like "Special Reserve," "Limited Edition," "Roastmaster's Reserve" and so on, represent coffee from a single crop and single place, often a single hillside, and are sold not on the basis of consistency or
Breakfast Blends 2006: An American Tradition Goes Cosmopolitan
What is a "breakfast blend"? The word and the idea come from a seemingly long-gone era in America when pancakes, diners and endless refills were the norm rather than quaintly retro exceptions. In 2006, what can American specialty coffee consumers expect from the term - and from the coffees? If the twenty-six nominal breakfast blends I sampled this month in collaboration with distinguished
Readers’ Choices: The Lush, the Classic, the Ultra-Dark
Our annual readers' choice article often represents an unintentional though perhaps inevitable mini-survey of specialty coffee trends and countertrends. Among this month's twelve top-rated reader-nominated coffees are several that echo the latest developments in the specialty world. Two, for example, are fine examples of the latest coffee type to excite American roasters and aficionados: dry or
Better than Ever: Boutique Espressos
What's a boutique espresso? How about a coffee designed for espresso brewing produced by a very small roasting company for local customers ranging from neighbors to nearby cafes and kiosks. In my most rigorously Platonic version of this definition, the people doing the roasting are ex-baristas (professional espresso machine operators) who got fed up with brewing someone else's coffee and
Hawaiian Coffees 2006: Not This Year
Disappointment implies history. We can only be disappointed if past successes make us expect more good things than actually come our way in the present. Such is the case with Coffee Review's latest revisiting of Hawaiian coffees. First disappointment: A rather lackluster collection of coffees from the famous Kona growing region, with only one of the twenty-two 100% Kona samples we collected
Undervalued Beauty: The Coffees of Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea, the country that occupies half of the enormous island of New Guinea just north of Australia, is certainly one of the least known and least acknowledged of major coffee producers. Many major specialty roasting companies do not offer a Papua New Guinea coffee, and those that do tend not to feature it. But the fact that five of the thirteen Papua New Guinea coffees we turned up
Single-Serve Correction and Reactions: Tassimo and Keurig
The Coffee Review's recent review of single-serve coffees and systems (At What Cost Convenience: Tasting the New Crop of Single-Serve Coffee Systems) provoked some sharp reactions from readers as well as one well-taken correction. Braun/Tassimo Cappuccinos and Caffe Lattes It turns out we were wrong when we dismissed all of the coffee-with-milk drinks produced by the new single-serve coffee
Colombia Runs the Table: Twelve at Ninety
A couple of weeks ago I was leading a coffee tasting for consumers, and I fielded a typical consumer question. What about Colombian coffee? Was it the - (hesitation, visions of Juan Valdez dancing in the head) - best in the world? Before this month's cupping, I would have confidently replied: No, of course not. Colombia gives us some excellent, classic, high-grown Latin American coffees, but
Romance and Perfection: 2006 Readers’ Choices
Several exceptional coffees and some interesting subplots emerged in our annual cupping of coffees nominated by Coffee Review readers (in this case, coffees intended for non-espresso brewing methods). Readers showed their usual good taste, with none of the thirty-six coffees we cupped attracting a rating under 80, and four scoring 90 or better. Some of this month's subplots and coffee
Tasting the New Crop of Single-Serve Coffee Systems
The idea, of course, sounds seductive enough: slip a little paper-covered pod or plastic pouch or capsule in a machine, press a button, and out comes a single serving of terrific, freshly-brewed coffee. No ground coffee on the counter, no arguments about whether to brew dark roast Kenya or decaf French Vanilla, no waste. A pod for everyone. You can brew a cup of pungent, dark-roasted Sumatra, your
A User’s Survey: Single-Serve Coffee Brewing Systems
Following are detailed reviews of a selection of most of the leading single-serve coffee brewing units on the market as of December 2005. By single-serve coffee brewing units we mean devices that produce single servings of freshly brewed drip-style coffee and related beverages on demand from individual cartridges of ground coffee. Note that these devices are intended to produce individual,
Still Tastes Good: Guatemala and Chiapas
In a world fatigued and oppressed by constant new scenes of flooding and disaster, the news that Guatemala, the southern Mexican state of Chiapas and adjacent parts of Central America recently suffered catastrophic floods and landslides owing to still another hurricane ? this one named Stan ? may have slipped by many of us. But for those coffee growers whose relatives or neighbors were lost in
Not for Beginners: Prize-Winning Latin American Coffees 2005
The eleven coffees reviewed this month are all prize winners from the various green coffee competitions that took place earlier this year across Central and South America. These competitions, during which a jury of international cuppers spends several well-caffeinated days slurping, spitting and obsessing over a gradually narrowing group of fine coffees from a given growing country, have become a
