Arabia Reviews

Cherry-toned chocolate and caramel notes in the aroma. In the cup the cherry sensation deepens to a sustained and rich apricot-like fruit. The sweetness carries into the finish, outlasting a slight touch of astringency.

Sweet, round-toned aroma with distinct cherryish fruit and aromatic wood notes. Intense and complex in the cup; the cherry tones deepen and sweeten to dessert-wine complexity with complicating suggestions of dark chocolate, herb and flowers. The chocolate carries into a long, dry finish with continued hints of wood and Mediterranean herbs.

Richly and sweetly acidy coffee with delicate complexity and depth. Cherryish fruit and nut notes in the aroma carry into the cup, with the fruit taking on a Riesling-like tart sweetness. Clean, crisp finish.

Intense, complex, roughly rich cup. In the aroma lush fermented fruit, moist fresh-fallen leaves and a hint of anise-like herb. In the cup the fruit ferment turns toward a minty, herb-nuanced dark chocolate or perhaps spiced apricot, with continued undercurrents of fresh earth and moist leaves. Complex, flavor-saturated finish shadowed by a very slight astringency.

Intense aroma: brandyish fermented fruit, sweet-toned flowers and aromatic wood. In the cup richly balanced; delicate fruit and floral top notes with deeper hints of earth, brandy-toned chocolate and aromatic wood. These deeper tones carry into a mildly but distinctly astringent finish.

Delicate but rich. Distinct milk chocolate notes and hints of butter and apricot-like fruit in aroma and cup; a suggestion of earth in the cup. The chocolate carries into a clean, sweet-toned finish.

Poised and balanced in aroma and cup, with cocoa-toned fruit, nut, aromatic wood, and a hint of mint-like herb. Delicately rich acidity, lightly syrupy body. The finish reveals a hint of astringency.

Complex aroma -- citrus, flowers, vanilla, rosehips, cinnamon and caramel. Bright, lingering acidity, full body, silkiness in mouthfeel, with a salty sweetness in structure. Flavors of Meyer lemon, salted caramel, floral hints and berries. Toast, nut and chocolate develop in the finish, sweetening in the long.

Janus-like coffee: sweet, rich, and lushly fruity with an herby bitter note that, depending on taste, either complicates or shadows the main event of the fruit. In the aroma the lushly fermented fruit reads as rich, cherryish chocolate with a hint of flowers and pungent cedar. In the cup gently acidy, medium bodied, crisply sweet with continued cherry- and chocolate-toned fruit and the bitterish rosemary note. Sweetness and chocolate prevail in the surprisingly clean finish.

Ambiguous flavors associated with fruity mustiness run through the profile. Co-cupper Miguel Meza (87) describes them as: "Sweet-smoky and medicinal. A pungent and musty full-bodied coffee with exotic hints of eucalyptus, sassafras and bakers' yeast." Ken (86) is more conventional and more positive: "Rich, raisiny dark chocolate with a pungent cedar and herbal edge in aroma and rather syrupy cup."

Medium-bodied, sweet, with the typical wild, slightly fermented Yemen fruit tones, in this case suggesting overripe cherry, apricot, and melon. In the finish the fruit ferment reads as a sort of brandied, bittersweet chocolate. A slight astringency in the finish suggests that during storage this coffee faded a bit, as Yemens quickly do.

A rather rough ride. The first impression is complex, but not entirely pleasantly so: a hard, ropey sensation sits on the profile. Behind and around the hard center a bracing, fruity richness opens, but we never get completely out from under the hardness, which, among other things, seems to depress the sweetness in the fruit.