Coffee reviews

Blends/Multiple / Coffee reviews / Corporate coffee

Coffee review: Millstone’s organic line

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #18.

I introduced the Millstone (Procter & Gamble) organic line of coffees in a previous post. This is a review of four of the five of the coffees in the line (I did not receive a sample of the Organic Mountain Moonlight blend).  There are four certified organic/certified Fair Trade coffees, and one Rainforest Alliance (RA) certified coffee.

The product brochure indicates these are grown in Central and South America, although they would not divulge any specifics, such as farms or co-ops, growing methods, or even country of origin for two blends.  The information says that this collection is “made from the very best arabica beans” although the product descriptions do not say “100% arabica.” However, these coffees arrived in coated paper bags, taped shut, with handwritten labels, so I don’t know what the actual bag might indicate.

These coffees made their biggest and most lasting impression right after I opened the box. The smell — presumably mostly from the paper-bagged varieties — filled the room in short order.  It wasn’t a pleasant coffee smell, but a very strong chemical/burnt rubber odor. It remained pungent for another 12 hours, as I took it all into work and had to move it out of my office because it smelled up my whole end of the hall. Happily, (but curiously), the odor disappeared by the next day, and even when we opened the packages, the beans mysteriously lacked real coffee odor.

Organic Nicaraguan Mountain Twilight Blend. This is described as “A medium-dark roast with a delightful aroma and smooth, rich taste.” Millstone would not answer a question regarding what co-op(s) in Nicaragua this came from; “blend” indicates more than one country of origin, but this information was not forthcoming.

The beans were quite dark, with a sheen but no spots of oil. The beans didn’t really smell like coffee, but had a dull burnt rubber aroma.  The coffee didn’t taste burnt, but lacked any richness.  One taster thought it tasted like coffee that was too weak made in a dirty pot (although it was made with our standard measurements, two tablespoons of grounds to each six ounces of water, in a french press for our first tasting).  This was just plain, mediocre coffee.  1.25 motmots.

Organic Mayan Black Onyx. “The darkest of our organic roasts with a smooth, bittersweet taste.” Again, no information on source.

These were dark beans indeed.  They smelled vaguely like burnt nuts (some debate on what kind of nuts — the kind that is the fruit of a tree, or the kind that is screwed onto a bolt). It was a surprise to us all that such a strong, dark and assertive-looking brew could taste so flat, insipid and lifeless. It left an odd coating on the tongue. I recall, back in the day, getting drunk, trying to sober up with coffee, then passing out. That stale taste left in my mouth the next morning?  Sorry, that’s what I thought of.  Our mean score barely struggled above 1 motmot.

Kenneth Davids at Coffee Review took a run at this one:

“A rather striking dark-roast coffee in its disconnected extremes of abandoned sweetness and charred bitterness.”

Organic Deep Peruvian Forest Blend. “A dark roast with a light, floral acidity and a clean finish.” No information on region of Peru, or if or what other countries contributed to the blend.

Yes, we kept going (we only tried one a day, to prevent any fatigue or bias). This was surely the strangest and worst of the bunch. Also a dark roast, but again a flat dark brown without surface oils. The beans had absolutely no coffee smell.  One reviewer said if he had been blindfolded, he would not have guessed it was coffee. Brewed, this blend had a truly strange oceanic smell, not coffee-like, but almost briny, a whiff of the sea. The taste was also genuinely odd — one reviewer (who has spent three summers in Alaska) said it reminded him of a hot puddle of seawater sitting on a pair of discarded rubber waders on a crab-fishing boat.  0.5 motmots

Rainforest Reserve. This was the only coffee that came in a sealed foil valve bag. It actually smelled like real coffee, but there was still a harshness to the odor that was faintly disagreeable. It is billed as a medium dark roast, but was identical to Green Mountain’s dark roast Rainforest Blend.

I was absolutely unable to get an answer from Millstone if this RA-certified Rainforest Reserve is the same as their Signature Collection Rainforest Reserve. If so, I found an old press release that notes it it sourced from the Lake Atitlan area in Guatemala. However, the Signature selection is not labeled organic, so I have to assume they are not sourcing from the same farms (remember that RA-certified coffee is not required to be certified organic, unlike Smithsonian Bird Friendly coffee, which is). The advantage Millstone has by not revealing the source of their beans is that they can change what goes into each variety, depending on availability and price.

This coffee was certainly the best of the bunch, which wasn’t saying too much.  It was slightly bitter, with a thin, metallic-tinged flavor that lacked richness. One person in our first group of four tasters did like it, and her score bumped up the average to our final rating of 2.25 motmots.

The only variety of the line not sampled was the Organic Mountain Moonlight.  However, the far-more-talented palate of Doug at Bloggle did review it. He notes “Its flavors tend toward wet earth and wood… and for a cup that tastes subtly of mud, it has surprisingly little body, but it does offer a fairly harsh, stale finish.” Check out the comment regarding why Millstone might be purposely marketing such characterless and uninspiring organic, Fair Trade coffee.

Parting thoughts
The thin body of these coffees, and their unappetizing aroma, were what really made them stand apart.  If we give Millstone the benefit of the doubt and believe that they use all arabica beans, then the lack of body and flavor can only be from poor handling and processing. This is a nice lesson in mass production versus hand-crafting. You can’t process and roast tens of thousands of pounds of beans with the same care and attention as batch-roasting to order.  The wheels just fall off.

Finally, a bit on Millstone and sustainability. I dug up P&G’s 2004 sustainability report (PDF).  It covers the whole company, not just the coffee, but has an index by subject. Under “Environmental Indicators, Biodiversity, Major Impacts on Biodiversity” there is no page reference, but a statement that says

“P&G does not track biodiversity land use as in general we do not operate in these areas.”

Indeed.

Caribou Coffee / Coffee reviews / Latin America / Retail and specialty roasters

Coffee Review: Caribou Coffee Ecuador Changaimina

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #17.

Coffee from Ecuador is something you don’t see every day. In fact, I think I’ve seen more places offering coffee from the Galapagos Islands (which are Ecuadorian) than from the mainland. So I was surprised to see it offered at Caribou Coffee.  Their limited edition coffees are known as the Roastmaster’s Reserves, and the current selection is Ecuador Changaimina, from the southern province of Loja (red on map).

Coffee has been grown in Ecuador for generations.  The lowlands produce robusta, but the high mountain regions produce decent  arabicas. Most of the high-grown coffee, from Loja province, is grown on small farms with very little use of chemicals. The major co-op in this area is PROCAP (Asociacion Agroartesanal de Productores de Café de Altura Puyango), an
organization of 380 families of which about two-thirds are certified organic. The organic coffee from this co-op is sometimes marketed as shade grown Puyango (Puyango is a canton, or subdivision, in the province, and the most important coffee-growing area in Loja, if not the whole country). Typica, bourbon, and caturra are the most frequently grown varieties, usually all grown on the same farm.

The lack of Ecuador beans in the market has been due to a lack of attention to proper harvesting and processing, and the expense of transportation from the highlands to the ports. A lot of Ecuadorian coffee goes to making instant coffee, so the large corporate coffee roasters are major buyers of Ecuadorian coffee. Improvements have been made in production methods, and farmers are aiming more for the specialty coffee market, hence we may be seeing more Ecuadorian coffee in the coming years.

Based on this Caribou Ecuador Changaimina, we cannot say the region is quite ready for prime time.  This wasn’t bad coffee, just unremarkable. At the first tasting, three of us sat there sipping silently, unable to come up with much to say. The next day, I sent the Kingfisher off with it in his travel mug.  I asked him later what he thought of it.  He sort of summed up the whole experience when he replied, “I don’t remember.”  Not a strong endorsement, but considering you tend to remember bad coffee, not a strong condemnation, either. 2.25 motmots.

Coffee reviews / Latin America

Coffee Review: Whole Foods (Allegro) Honduras San Marcos

Plainspoken Coffee. A Coffee Review for Ordinary People by Ordinary People, #16.

The two major natural foods markets, at least in our region, are Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods.  There are more TJ’s close to me, but I’ve always been a bit frustrated by their coffees.  Determining origin on most of their self-branded beans is difficult, if not futile.  Some of their offerings are okay (the Organic Bolivian is decent), but even Coffee Review found most to be average (notice also the lack of origin info on most). More on TJ’s in this post.

Whole Foods, on the other hand, is much more transparent. Although they carry several additional brands (varies regionally), including Intelligentsia and Counter Culture’s Sanctuary line of shade coffees, Whole Foods features coffees roasted by Allegro Coffee Company in Colorado. Allegro is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Whole Foods, acquired in 1997.  The Allegro web site has a page where you can download their social responsibility scorecard and coffee sourcing report.

Today’s review is of Allegro’s Organic San Marcos from Honduras. It is a Special Reserve selection. Growers of Special Reserve coffees receive $10,000 to fund community initiatives.  This coffee is from the COCOSAM cooperative in San Marcos de Colon, Choluteca department in southwestern Honduras (red on map). Around half the growers of this nearly 100-farmer co-op grow certified organic coffee.  The varieties grown are bourbon, caturra, and catuai.

This is a light roast (full city). There was no roast date on the bag, but a “best used by” date of 3/23/07 and the healthy bloom when prepared on 16 January indicates a 12/23/06 roasting, or thereabouts.

As a mixed lot from a number of farms, I did not expect it to approach the excellence of the single estate Honduran El Puente from Counter Culture, one of my favorite Central American coffees. The San Marcos is also grown at a lower altitude than the El Puente, a factor that might also argue for points off the flavor profile. But the tasting panel agreed this was a really enjoyable coffee.

Like nearly all Honduran and Guatemalan coffees we’ve sniffed, the San Marcos had a beautiful aroma.  I don’t think I’d ever get tired of smelling beans like this, although the coffee rarely lives up to the (small) room-filling fragrance.  At any rate, the San Marcos had a profile typical of good Central Americans: hints of vanilla, milk chocolate, and caramel.  This coffee was very smooth, almost buttery, with an especially creamy mouthfeel that we thought added a lot to the experience.  This was, unsurprisingly, most pronounced when prepared in a press.  It was also excellent brewed, although I’d skip the paper filter and use a gold filter to preserve some of the creamy smoothness.  We give this 3.75 motmots.

Since they are so accessible to many people, we’ll be reviewing at least two more Whole Foods/Allegro coffees in the future.

Coffee reviews / Corporate coffee

Coffee Review reviews supermarket coffees

The latest at Coffee Review is a look at mainstream supermarket coffees.  Reviewing prepackaged, pre-ground coffees is a departure for Kenneth Davids’ site, which is the best source on the web for reviews of specialty coffees. Davids was honest, perhaps even courageous, giving a couple of coffees fair scores. However, his overview states that “the mainstream supermarket coffees reviewed here offered mainly mediocrity, bracketed by a couple of excursions into pretty good and more than a couple into sheer repulsiveness.”

Just because a few coffees scored “pretty good” should not encourage people to stick with these cheap beans, for reasons described below. He reviews 14 coffees available in major supermarkets, which include a couple I’ve never heard of (regional?) and some “crossover” products such as Peet’s and Starbucks.  You should certainly read the whole article, but I’d like to mention two points he makes about the big corporate coffees. He reviews Maxwell House and two Yubans (all owned by Kraft); four by Folgers (owned by Procter & Gamble); and MJB Premium (owned by Sara Lee).

All of these commodity brands share a similar heritage.  Davids writes:

Most of the robustas in the cans appeared to have been steamed to remove the sewery taints these coffees acquire through being dried inside the fruit in rotting heaps. The result is a neutral, cloyingly sweet, woody, vaguely nut-like cup, usually with a slight residual hint of rot. All of the standard branded, canned blends shared a similar steamed-robusta-heavy profile, with only minor differences.

Aside from the lousy taste, the corporate (and public) thirst for cheap robusta beans is what precipitated the coffee crisis, driving thousands of small farmers who grew quality arabica beans out of business. This is most often framed as a serious humanitarian crisis — and it is — but it has also been an ecological disaster. Plummeting prices led farmers to sell their farms, or convert them to less environmentally-friendly crops (including drugs) or to sun coffee. Please read more here.

Davids discusses what inexpensive coffees mean to farmers, even the theoretically beneficial types like the Rainforest Alliance certified Yuban blend (which I discussed in depth here). He notes, “mainstream supermarket coffees generally fail to provide much option for those of us who want to recognize and reward coffee growers as our colleagues rather than exploit them as unacknowledged drones in the vast global commodity hive.”

One coffee he reviewed, which got a decent score, was Wal-Mart’s Great Value 100% Arabica, which was also incredibly cheap (“someone got shafted..at the coffee-tree end of the supply chain.”) The importance of a retail giant like Wal-Mart in the coffee business deserves a post of its own, which will be forthcoming.