WRAPPER: Nicaraguan
BINDER: Nicaraguan
FILLER: Honduran, Nicaraguan
FORMAT: Robusto (554)
ORIGIN: Honduras (La Flor de Copan)
INTENSITY: Medium-full/Full
NOTES:
Vegetal | Coffee beans | Nuts/woods
Quite vegetal at least on its onset, but far from being raw-bitey green. Roasted and toasted grains and darkly sweet grasses hit on a neat savoriness. Dusty and non-descript spices are accompanied by a kindly-cracked black peppercorn. Almonds and black walnuts, heavy on their shells, evolve into lively hardwoods of excellent structure and delineation. That said, not all notes are fully-formed, many are vague while bold.
Nicely balanced and goodly nuanced, especially in the opening half. Not an awful lot of kind complexity throughout. Errs on occasion toward somewhat burnt notes, particularly when Italian roasted coffee beans flood into the second-half and mess with the harmony. Big transition away from vegetal toward more rigidity. Smoky. Charcoal. Seasoned wood. An inky dark profile come the smoothed out last-third.
Exhibits flaky, airy ash and an uneven burn that requires a pair of retouches, one almost an entire re-light. The draw is quite excellent, does tighten a tick via progression. Smoke out-put fluctuates but always shows an interesting woodsy-spicy aroma, not acrid nor off-putting, but heady af. Big as the profile. Smokes fairly quickly, lending to a sense of excitability, not calmness. Sort of gives me a knot in my stomach.
TASTE: B+
DRAW: A-
BURN: B
BUILD: B+
FINAL GRADE: B+
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79
::: very :::