Dark Roasts Reviews

Not much fruit here and lots of rather twisty, smoky carbon. But if you're patient the sweet-pungent Espresso complex emerges behind the carbon, with perhaps a hint of chocolate. The carbon flattens the profile in the finish, but the body is husky and the entire package improves in milk, which as usual ramps up the sweetness and exaggerates the chocolate.

I found this blend low-toned and pungently fruity, although the fruitiness was dry rather than sweet. For me the pungency turned pleasantly round, sweet, and chocolaty when combined with milk. My tasting colleague didn't respond to the pungency in any context. She found this blend too sharp in a demitasse and too thin in milk.

Simple but centered, a classically solid Espresso. Once past the low-key, caramel/toast/chocolate nose I didn't register much in the way of grace notes, but neither was I oppressed by carbon. My taster colleague picked up muted wine-fruit tones. In milk, sweet and substantial.

The roast overwhelms the coffee here. The cup is carbon-toned and rather thin-bodied, with little nuance or dimension. Pleasant and without offense, but this Costa Rica's virtues and surprises apparently were left behind in the decaffeination vat and roasting smoke.

One of the few coffees in the cupping with resonance and depth. You have to be patient with this coffee and wait for the heavy, pruny, dark-roast pungency to reveal itself in the finish, but it's worth the wait. If this coffee showed some acidity and top notes it might be a real winner. As it is, the attic is bare and all the fun is in the cellar, but that's probably as it should be in something called a French roast.

Solid, balanced, with a slightly winy acidity wrapped in a substantial body, all characteristics of a good Colombia. But again, these virtues seem attenuated. The complexity is confined to the middle registers, with both top and bottom notes pinched off. A slight sweetness fills out the profile in the finish.

Depending on whether your palate reads the fermented notes as pleasantly fruity or disagreeably cloying, you could love or loath this coffee. If you think you might love it, ignore the rating, which deducts for the ferment. Under the impact of the dark roast the ferment turns lush, almost spicy. Displays the usual Indonesia virtue of solid body.

Hard, high notes surprise in both aroma and cup, persisting into the aftertaste. But if you taste attentively the fundamental, Indonesian matrix of the coffee emerges beneath the sharpness: rich, subtly low-toned, balanced, with some tones that even could be called chocolate. In the first round of cupping the sharp notes seemed to energize the coffee; in the second they just tasted sharp.

Dark fruit (prune?) tones complicate a solid, balanced, dark-roast character. Some carbon at the top of the profile, but good Indonesia richness underneath. The carbon dominates in the aftertaste.

First pungent then complex, the aroma is full of intrigue. We get a bit less in the cup, but given the darkness of the roast what remains is still impressive: enough acidity to keep the body lively, and generally an admirable balance between the qualities of the coffee and the impact of the roast.

Extends from a deep, rich bottom to acidy, wine-elevated notes at the top. The usual Starbucks carbon tones are pleasantly lost in the expansive complexity of the coffee until the aftertaste, when they surface after the rest of the profile has passed into memory.

Pungent, chocolate notes enliven the aroma, but in the cup burned tones dominate. The body is decent, but in the aftertaste the carbon prevails completely.

Some wine tones survive the dark roast to complicate the acidity. Brought along to a dark roast slowly enough to spare us burned notes, but for a Kenya not a lot of body or dimension either. The pleasure would seem to be the paradox of understated acidity and dark-roast pungency.

Impressive complexity for such a dark-roasted coffee. Prune and vanilla tones grace the aroma, while a fruit-nuanced acidity dominates in the cup. As the coffee cools suggestions of ferment surface in the fruity acidity.

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.

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 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.