Blend Reviews

Sweet and richly low-toned in the aroma, with shimmers of flowers, grapefruit and perhaps apples. In the cup the fruit turns opulently bittersweet under the impact of the roast: walnuts, dried apricots, bittersweet chocolate.

Seductive aroma: sweet Meyer lemon, roasty chocolate, balanced and elegant. The lyric lemon and chocolate notes survive a sharp roastiness in the cup, but finally lose their way in the rather astringent finish.

In the aroma explosively sweet and exquisitely balanced, with chocolate and a gently gingery spice. In the cup complex and wide in range: roasty, pungent, with a tickle of lemony sweet acidity and a hint of musty earth. An underlying astringent heaviness weighs slightly on the finish.

A heartily roasty, herb-toned, bittersweet chocolate dominates both aroma and cup, though turning a bit flat and burned in the finish. Overall narrow in range but pleasingly intense. Maintains character as it cools.

Sweetly balanced and gently roasty. Little distinguishable nuance, though the cup is pleasantly alive with an almost subliminal range of fruity sensation. Slight astringency in the finish.

In the aroma roasty, sweet, slightly burned, complicated by a prune-toned fruit just on the dry side of chocolate. In the cup the chocolate inclination of the fruit clearly declares itself, particularly as the coffee cools. The roasty tones turn a bit astringent in the finish.

The aroma is round and intense but limited in nuance. The cup adds a complicating hint of chocolate-toned fruit to a similarly limited but balanced and deeply resonant profile.

The aroma is delicate to a fault, more neutral than balanced. The mouthfeel is lean and the flavor watery, with a faintly sweet, delicately acidy character complicated by attractive grapefruit notes.

The aroma is subdued but complex with leather, chocolate and apricot. In the cup a fine balance of bitter bite and seductive sweetness, complicated by an apricot-almond-toned fruit and a crisp bittersweet chocolate. Medium-bodied, gently rich.

The aroma is sweet, gently pungent, rich with low-toned, spicy fruit notes. The cup is medium-bodied, round, very sweet, with just enough acidity for authority. The low-toned fruit leans elegantly toward chocolate.

Pungently roasty with cantaloupe notes in the aroma. In the cup softens nicely, allowing some sweet lemon and grapefruit notes to glisten in the smooth, rather delicate roastiness. Sweet but gently astringent finish.

Roasty and sweet in the nose, with excellent balance and dimension. In the cup soft, gently roasty, and cocoa-toned. Long, unobtrusively rich finish.

The pungently sweet roast dominates, but with a light touch. Shimmers of apple and pear glint in the aroma, flowers and dark chocolate in the cup. The finish is cleanly bittersweet but mildly astringent.

Some sweetly lush apricot fruit makes itself felt around the edges of the dominating dark roast. Otherwise this cup is entirely about an aggressive roast style (richly burned and mildly astringent) rather than El Salvador bourbon coffee.

An outright and unmistakably flavor-defective coffee. The aroma literally smelled like a whiff of something out of a summer sewer and the cup combined bitterly sharp mildew tones with rotten, compost-pile ferment.

Apparently the blender who created this faux Kona aimed at a richly sweet, winy, roundly fruit-toned cup. He or she largely succeeded, though the success is marred by very mild but flavor-flattening mildew tones.

Balanced, mid-toned, gently roasty, with a hint of low-toned fruit. Agreeable, though rather inert.

Sweet, mid-toned, with a lively but unobtrusive acidity. Distinct vanilla notes in both aroma and cup and richly dry fruit notes, dried apricot or plum, in the cup. The finish is rich but rather astringent and heavy.

A grandly acidy coffee, austerely tart yet voluptuously sweet. Complicated by hints of green apple or pie cherry, but the main expression is the huge, rich gesture of the acidity. The finish is tart but round and opulent.

A low-toned but resonant, agreeable blend, crisp with tart, berry-toned fruit. Rather lean-bodied but rich in impression. The finish is sweet and balanced.