Review: Drum Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Banko Gotiti FTO (Missoula, Montana)

I first heard about Drum Coffee via my friend Brandon, a fantastically talented percussionist who happened to stop in at one of their locations while on a road trip. My first reaction to the roaster’s name was, ha, nice pun (since I figured they use a drum roaster to roast their coffee beans). But on […]

Review: Sparrow Coffee Ethiopia Guji (Chicago, Illinois)

I can’t even remember now how Sparrow Coffee got on my radar, but they were the one Chicago-based roaster for whom I was willing to go out of my way in order to buy their beans. I even scheduled my Friday flight to arrive in enough time that I could get to their roastery before […]

Review: Café Grumpy Heartbreaker Espresso Blend (Brooklyn, New York)

Café Grumpy calls their Heartbreaker blend their signature house espresso blend. Like a lot of blends, this one appears to rotate components based on availability and current flavor profiles. Right now, this blend is a combination of Guatemalan and Ethiopian (Kochere) beans, so I guessed that I could expect chocolate and perhaps some fruity/berry and […]

Review: Cuvée Coffee Ethiopia Cuberow (Austin, Texas)

I found this bag of Cuvée Coffee at a different Whole Foods location than I normally go to – they had a slightly different selection than my local store, but this was the freshest option. I had just had the Cuvée Brazilian, so I wasn’t really keen to buy another bag from the same roaster, but this […]

Review: PT’s Coffee Roasting Company Ethiopia Gedeo Natural (Topeka, Kansas)

Kansas might not be the state in the U. S. that first comes to mind when thinking about states with great coffee roasters, but I’ve been wanting to investigate coffee from PT’s for quite some time now, after seeing them mentioned on multiple “best of” lists over the past couple of years. It’s a new […]

Review: Cartel Coffee Lab Ethiopia Kochere (Phoenix, Arizona)

When you think of airport coffee, you probably think of Starbucks, right? Well, if you ever find yourself in the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, make your way over to Terminal 4 to visit Cartel Coffee Lab’s PHX location. As is typical when I travel somewhere new, when I arrived in Phoenix, I Googled “best […]

Review: Flight Coffee Kenya Rutuma (Wellington, New Zealand)

Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to the North Island of New Zealand. What a heartbreakingly beautiful country (and I know I didn’t even come close to seeing even 10% of its beauty!). About half of my trip was spent in the capital city of Wellington. Wellington is an incredible city – it reminded […]

Review: The Missing Bean Unbirthday Blend (Oxford, England)

This tasting is a direct result of me getting to spend a little over a week in a dream destination for me (England) so though I’m going to remain as objective as possible about the coffee, I can’t help but smile when I think about just about everything related to this journey. Rose-colored glasses alert ahead! […]

Review: Novo Coffee Roasters Rwanda Bufcafe (Denver, Colorado)

After reviewing the Novo Ethiopia Guji, I was a little apprehensive about cracking open the next bag. I didn’t hate the Guji, but it wasn’t quite what I had hoped. This bag from Rwanda promised to be pretty different, so I sliced it open and dove in. Whole bean: The scent was earthy with notes […]