Full yet majestically buoyant. The aroma soars with sweet nut notes, the cup glistens with fruit and flowers, the entire impression is gentle but enormous. The finish is aggressively dry but saved from astringency by rich cocoa tones.
Alive with the slightly wild fruit and dry-wine tones of the great dry-processed coffees of Yemen and Ethiopia. In the wonderfully long, sweet finish the fruit tones darken deliciously toward chocolate.
The aroma is magnificent: high, sweet and singing. The cup is gently bright, with a pear or apple sweetness and a touch of pungency in the mid tones. The slight green tones are so sweet they 're more meadowy than grassy.
Understated, barely felt dry tones animate a roundly balanced cup embellished by teasing hints of deep-toned fruit and a shimmer of flowers. In the rich, long finish the fruit modulates toward chocolate. As the coffee cools a slight flatness mars the profile, perhaps a drying fault. I evaluated this coffee mainly on the basis of its full, lovely balance when hot.
This intriguing, low-toned coffee is neither balanced nor coherent, but definitely engaging. The rather hard first impression instantly softens and sweetens, revealing odd, richly herbal notes. The herbal notes persist in the aftertaste, haloed by sweetness.
Dry acidy tones combine nicely with a restrained roasty pungency. Good, deep dimension, but little sweetness to support the deeply tart fruit notes.
A dry but lively dark roast with a nutty, spicy twist at its pungently roasty heart. Rather light, roast-attenuated body, but the finish is buoyant, almost effervescent, with a subliminal hint of chocolate.
A pure, classic dark-roast gesture. Unusually full body for a roast this dark: smooth, balanced, round in the cup, with a sweetness at the core of the dark-roast pungency that opens like a glimpse of a meadow through a curtain of pines.
Pleasant and interesting, although to my taste the coffee component is not quite sweet or heavy-bodied enough to completely support the spice. A sharp tickle of pepper and clove with a hint of cinnamon sweetness complicates a straightforward, low-key cup.
A big-bodied darkish blend with hints of sweet fruit that doesn 't quite get off the ground. The heart of the coffee remains sweet and full but rather inert. Perhaps best in the long aftertaste, when the sweet tones are freed of the gritty encumbrances of body and texture.
The earthy tones of the Indonesias dominate, sweet in the nose but dry and cocoa-like on the palate. A hint of winy fruit tries to raise its head above the dry earth and cocoa but subsides into the taciturn briskness of the cup.