Reviews for The Supreme Bean
Produced from an ESE pod on a FrancisFrancis! pod brewer. Aromatic wood, leather, tartly cherryish chocolate and delicate floral top notes carry from aroma through demitasse to finish. Leanish mouthfeel. In two parts milk caramelly dark chocolate and a continued suggestion of cherry-toned fruit.
A fine, versatile decaffeinated espresso particularly remarkable for its persistent floral top notes. In the aroma flowers, chocolate and apricot-toned fruit. In the small cup full body with perhaps a slightly rough mouthfeel, pungent, rich and balanced, with continuing semi-sweet chocolate and floral notes that carry into the finish. Blooms nicely in milk with minty chocolate sweetness while still maintaining the attractive floral and fruit complication.
Straightforward aroma with caramel and apricot-toned fruit. In the small cup syrupy and round, with a gentle fruit-toned cedar character and a mild musty-malty edge. Rich finish with a slight astringency. Very impressive in milk: semi-sweet chocolate with a fruity lean toward banana and apricot: rich, sweet, expansive.
Deep, sweet-toned, buttery aroma with a spicy, cedary chocolate and a hint of fruit, pear perhaps. In the cup delicately robust, with a roundly lush but continuing spicy, cedary, almost black-peppery chocolate and a suggestion of coconut, the sweet processed kind. Roundly rich finish.
An impressively sweet, smooth, deeply dimensioned, softly complex espresso. Co-cupper Ted Lingle (92) used the term "resonant" twice to describe flavor and finish in the small cup. Ken (90) was most impressed by the details: a fresh-cut cedar character that was pungent but sweet and round, and wine-toned fruit notes. Bloomed in milk with discreet balance and a rich chocolate. Reader Chris Horn nominated another of Supreme Bean's espresso blends, but we ended up reviewing this one instead (don't ask).
Deep, sweetly pungent aroma with echoes of apricot or papaya. The mouthfeel is a bit rough but pleasantly so. The small cup is rich and sweet with a tightly-knit, deeply fruity complexity complicated by hints of cedar and toast. The sweet richness persists from short through long finish. Impressive range of sensation in milk: crisply sweet yet lushly chocolate.
Smoothly pungent, roasty presentation. Cedar, prune and raisin notes contribute to a pleasingly complex aroma, but the roast dominates the aromatics in the cup, relieved mainly by subtle but distinct floral top notes. Astringent though rich in the short finish, floral-toned in the long.
The roast takes equal place with the coffee in the success of this darker roasted Yirgacheffe, proving, in co-cupper Christy Thorns' (91) words, "the amazing roasting range that a fine Ethiopian coffee can withstand." Christy finds "stone fruit, licorice, black pepper, citrus, rose petal and lavender" in the aroma and cup. Ken (90) also admired the rich floral and sweet citrus character.
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.
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.
A cup that will put off purist coffee professionals but please everyone else: Fermented fruit tones that require some imagination to read as cherryish chocolate in the aroma simply explode with extravagantly complex fruit and floral nuance in the cup. As the cup cools the fruit seems to shed its ambiguous ferment entirely and turn cleanly lush.
A sweet, lyric coffee with remarkable complexity, starting with the aroma -- distinct leather notes, winy fruit, milk chocolate -- to the cup, where the wine tones deepen and take on an almost smoky edge. Clean, sweet, grape-like finish.
