BLEND: Vintage Maduro 2013
WRAPPER: Connecticut Broadleaf
BINDER: Honduran
FILLER: Brazilian, Dominican, Nicaraguan
FORMAT: Robusto
ORIGIN: Dominican Republic
INTENSITY: Medium/Med. Full
NOTES:
Coffee | Fruit/floral | Leather
Citrusy and floral-fruity. Well-behind that and those, a stiff savory leather. Beef jerky-ish. Some Italian roasted coffee beans. Cream tries to cushion in ebbs and flows, eventually toasts and gets absorbed into a smoky hardwood. A thin bit of molasses and a thicker-bit of vanilla bean eventually rise up and step-forward to balance the ultimately quite complex profile.
So that come the 2/3, it is a balanced smoke. Nuanced but the depths hang low, wallow to and fro, and are disconnected from the primaries. It's all dried compost in those nethers, and drippings from above. The smoke lacks a certain heft but does leave a nice fruity-sweet finish laced with black peppercorn. I begin to envision someone spooning purple jelly into their black coffee.
I will say that the profile is well-structured and almost brilliantly delineated. I should have included that sentence in the prior paragraph, I suppose. The ash splits in the opening third and the burn-line takes a moment to settle-in. Draws smoothly after the first puffs are rather hollow. Nice pacing and excellent smoke out-put. Leathery-sweet aroma with a cola lilt. All sorta fizzles a tick in the final-third.
TASTE: B+
DRAW: B+
BURN: B
BUILD: A-
FINAL GRADE: B+
A 90-100 B 80-89 C 70-79
::: very :::