Porca Food

Every year, Coffee Review organizes a report focusing on roasting companies from various regions of the U.S.: in 2018, the Mountain States, in 2019, New England, and in 2020, the Northwest. Given that it’s been a difficult winter, to say the least, this month’s report celebrates coffees roasted in U.S. coastal communities, particularly beach towns and tourist destinations. We put out our general call for samples, augmented by ordering coffees from roasters not on our email list but situated in U.S. seaside communities known for their vacation appeal.

We ended up with 40 coffees. Once they came off the table, we discovered, partly to our chagrin, that several usual suspects had risen to the top — namely, roasters we know from Hawaii and San Diego, along with one … Read more

Like everything bought and sold, coffee can be a vehicle for profit or a tool for changing the world. Sometimes, it is both. 2020 was, unequivocally, a difficult year for the coffee industry, globally speaking, as it was for many of us working in that industry. One response to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic is to help others make it through the storm. Our report this month shines a spotlight on those kinds of coffee roasters, folks who have either been community-minded since their companies’ inceptions, or those just getting on the philanthropic wave.

We take a look at roasters who are contributing some portion of proceeds from the sale of their coffees to causes that are meaningful to them — from non-profits that feed local communities to scholarship funds for women of … Read more

Colombia could be approaching best-of-both-worlds status as coffee producer. On one hand, standard commodity Colombias continue rolling down to the ports and onward into “100{ab5f2c9c740426ae4c9b4912729231eec62bb8d7f7c15dd2b52ffa544e442110} Colombian” supermarket cans and jars, whose quite decent contents put to shame the bland, woody, Robusta-laden contents of competing supermarket cans and jars.

At the same time, small lots of specialty Colombia coffees, surprising and exceptional, have surfaced over the last decade or so. Until recently, these specialty Colombias aimed for a superior version of the classic power and completeness associated with the best traditional Colombia coffees. In other words, they aspired to transcend the standard-issue Colombia cup by doing the same thing, only better.

But recently, increasing numbers of Colombias have appeared on specialty lists that represent the opposite of classic. … Read more

In 2020, COVID-19 devastated lives and businesses, challenging the global specialty coffee community to its core. On the producing side, the pandemic added still another daunting challenge to growers facing endemic low coffee prices and an ongoing battle with leaf rust disease in Latin America. On the consuming side, roasters saw the pandemic shutter their bread-and-butter café businesses while many once-nomadic coffee lovers were forced to become at-home shoppers and brewers.

But growers, importers, roasters and retailers adapted and prevailed, often in remarkable ways. At Coffee Review, exceptional coffees continued to arrive throughout the year from an even greater range of origins than before the pandemic. Farmers and roasters deserve recognition every year, but especially in 2020.

Amplifying the Top 30

As usual, we capped a year of celebrating great coffees and those who produce them with publication of our annual Top 30 list of the most exciting coffees … Read more

Coffee Review’s list of the Top 30 Coffees of 2020 represents our eighth annual ranking of the most exciting coffees we tested over the course of the year. The Top 30 celebrates and promotes coffee roasters, farmers, mill operators, importers, and other coffee industry professionals who make an extra effort to produce coffees that are not only superb in quality but also distinctive in character.

Over the past 12 months, we cupped over 2,000 coffee samples and published more than 450 reviews, both significant increases over past years. The coffees we chose to review were primarily high-rated coffees, which are of most interest to our readers. This year, about one in four coffees we tested scored 90 points or higher, and nearly 200, almost 10{ab5f2c9c740426ae4c9b4912729231eec62bb8d7f7c15dd2b52ffa544e442110} of the total, rated 94 or higher, a tribute to the ever-intensifying innovation and dedication of the world’s leading coffee producers and roasters.

(For … Read more