A simple but very balanced, sturdy dark roast. The aroma is intense and roasty with sweet cedar notes and perhaps little flickers of chocolate and caramel. Less nuance in the cup, but roundly and richly bittersweet without a trace of burned notes and perhaps some cedar-toned fruit. Clean, complex short finish with only a hint of astringency in the long.
Intense, cleanly bittersweet ultra-dark roast with complex, attractive fruit notes: cherry, pear and pipe tobacco in the aroma, with the cherry-toned pipe tobacco turning toward semi-sweet chocolate in the cup. Sweet and rich in the short finish, but rather heavily astringent in the long.
Balanced, muted aroma with orange notes and a hint of milk chocolate. In the cup sweet, rather rich, balanced. Not much nuance, a hint of bittersweet chocolate perhaps. Pleasantly rich and sweet in the short finish; maintains sweetness in the long with little astringency.
Richly balanced aroma with hints of chocolate- and sweet-spice-toned fruit. In the cup sweet, delicate, refreshingly light-bodied with some almost giddily high-toned fruit and floral notes, but betrayed by an undercurrent of cardboardy flatness. Whatever caused the cardboardy or woody sensation seems to dominate in the thin, flat finish.
Richly smoky aroma, with some sweet chocolate- and apricot-toned fruit and wood tones that are just aromatic enough to escape smelling like burned old board. In the cup thin-bodied but smooth in mouthfeel, with pleasantly and delicately smoky wood tones and hints of cedar and semi-sweet chocolate. The finish is simple but clean, sweet and free of astringency, with some faint recollections of chocolate.
In the aroma flat, rather woody, with low-toned fruit notes suggesting a sort of spicy banana. These odd but pleasant fruit notes persist in the rich though rather monotoned cup, which grows flatter and woodier as it cools. Medium body, clean, rich, rather pleasant finish.
In the aroma shallow in sensation but pleasantly sweet with orange- and aromatic-wood notes. The cup is sweet, delicate, complicated by orange and a hint of milk chocolate but shadowed by flat, woody undertones. Sweet, clean short finish, but in the long the woody, flat undercurrents resurface.
The aroma is sweet but flat, with a distinct burned wood character. In the cup the burned tones come across as rather rich, bolstered by a dry spice, almost black pepper sensation. Sweetens and softens surprisingly in the finish, especially in the long.
Pleasant enough aroma: rich, with a lushly fruity, brandied chocolate complication. After that pleasant overture, however, things go downhill fast. In the cup blaringly bitter and astringent, though hints of cherryish, chocolaty fruit do survive. In the finish, however, nothing at survives except a hard, overbearing astringency.