Dark Reviews

The Gimme!Coffee package describes this blend's aroma as "Centennial Harley leather." I can-t say much about Centennial or Harley, but I'd agree on the leather, with maybe a kinky smear of chocolate thrown in. Flavor is described as "Dive Bar Chic." As a dive bar innocent I'd call it dense, simple, but big and balanced, with more leather and perhaps some pleasantly pungent cedar notes. No leather makes it into the milk, but a very pleasant, high-toned chocolate-and-nuts sweetness does.

Big but elegantly leathery aroma laced with chocolate. In the small cup a dry sharpness limits the chocolate tones, but they reassert themselves in milk, blossoming richly with a long, hazelnut-toned finish.

An unusually successful ultra-dark-roasted espresso: the gently burned tones in the aroma develop rather than dominate the pronounced dry fruit and chocolate notes that carry from aroma through small cup into milk, where they bloom with lean but masterful authority.

The aroma is sweet, smoky and toasty. In the small cup the smoky tones complement a dry but lush fruitiness. Comes richly into its own in milk, where the smoke and toast tones read as fresh leather and the dry fruit turns crisply chocolate.

Crisp cedar tones and sweet chocolate in the small cup. In milk the chocolate further blooms and softens, and the cedar tones read as a high-toned sweetly tart fruit (pineapple?).

Charred aroma, lean mouthfeel and a bitterish sharpness in the small cup all suggest an overly aggressive roast. But a floral sweetness wafts through the profile and contributes to a fine presence in milk: still a bit lean in mouthfeel but alive with leather, apricot and chocolate notes.

Decent enough in the aroma: sweetly pungent, balanced, intensely roasty with a twist of slightly charred cedar. In the cup sweet and pungent, but the charred cedar notes turn to charred board notes, expressionless and woody. A vague hint of fruit at the top of the profile. I hope the nominating reader tasted a better sample of the Verona than this one.

Intensely roasty; no rubber tones but overwhelmingly charred. Rather light-bodied but dense in sensation. The burned notes carry resiny hints of charred pine and pungent Mediterranean herbs; rosemary perhaps. Reader P. Teel found this coffee "deep, rich and flavorful."

Rather simple aroma but fine, deep, roasty dimension with distinct dark chocolate notes. In the cup roundly roasty with a tickle of acidity and chocolate and prune-toned fruit. A touch sharp when hot but softens and sweetens as it cools.

Elegant, balanced dark roast: Comfortably sweet with a shimmer of acidity and a hint of roastiness. The bittersweet chocolate and pineapple notes in the aroma deepen and round congenially in the cup.

Impressively complex ultra-dark roast: The roast tones are sweet and rather restrained in the aroma, complicated by fresh leather and apricot. In the cup they turn rich, full-throated and bittersweet. The finish is a touch heavy and astringent, inevitable in a roast this dark.

Roasty and sweetly and gently charred, with a hint of fermented fruit that under the influence of the roast suggests a spicily aromatic chocolate - imagine bittersweet chocolate stored in charred cedar. Rich finish with a tingle of astringency.

The chicory in this moderately dark-roasted blend announces itself tactfully but distinctly in the peppery mouthfeel, spicy, resiny notes (think rosemary stored in a scorched cedar box), with a hint of round, slightly, salty fruit underneath - Chinese salt plums perhaps.

Predictable ultra-dark roast: intense and pungent with an edge of charred cedar in the aroma; in the cup thin in mouthfeel and sweetly charred, with a mildly astringent finish that lovers of this style of roast will find bracing.

In the aroma sweetly and cleanly roasty and cedar-toned. The roasty tones turn burned and rather cloyingly sweet in the cup - lightly charred cedar or sandalwood.

In the nose intensely roasty and intensely alive with pungently sweet fruit - passion fruit, or sweet grapefruit. In the cup the powerful coupling of sweet fruit and bitterish roast tones persists. Patient palates may read a raisin-toned dark chocolate in the roasty fruit.

Rich in the aroma, pungent fruit, fresh leather, roasty chocolate. The roast tones turn the cup rather sharp and monotoned, however. In the finish softens once again toward a richly dry, chocolate-toned fruit.

Willem: "Blossom-like, peppery aroma, just like the roses from my 50+year-old rose tree! Mild sweet flavor with lingering floral aftertaste. Excellent caramel complexity with milk. I loved it." (92) What for Willem was peppery and blossom-like, for Ken was spicy and fruity in the aroma and smokily fruity in the small cup. Ken wanted more sweetness in the demitasse but in milk praised this blend as "sweet, crisp and cherry-like edging toward chocolate." (89).

Both Willem and Ken found this blend satisfying, though not exciting. Willem: "elegant floral aroma. Overall: smooth and soft with pleasantly lingering aftertaste. Rich caramel notes in milk." (87) Ken: "Complex in a narrow range: smoky, sweet fruit in the aroma, smoky and spicy in the demitasse. Caramelly and sweet though a bit shallow in milk." (86)

Both Ken and Willem admired the aroma of this rather darkly roasted blend, but the ambiguous flavor notes in the cup provoked ambivalence. For Willem the aroma was "excellent & fine and deep at the same time, with delicious floral notes," for Ken it was "sweet with a round, roasty chocolate and peach and floral notes." In the cup Willem found an "interesting flavor with an overpowering berry, almost musty, fruit aftertaste" (86) and Ken "dominating pungent, smoky tones, with a dry edge of chocolate; rather sharp and thin in the finish." (83)