Adams and Russell

Another lovely dose from Adams and Russell. The beans for this one are tiny - and quite dusty looking . There's no obvious oily ness to them. In fact they look like they may have been picked up of the floor of the drying room shed. Don't let that fool you though into thinking this is an inferior brew. It's not - it's strong, yet forgiving to make. Nothing came out bad no matter how much we varied the dose. As with a few of these Adams and Russell coffees we've had - there's nothing to really set this apart from the crowd. It's just coffee. Good coffee. It would take the taste buds of 1000 virgin angels to find any other flavours in there. So, overall it's OK... just a bit, well... boring? 7/10

The beans of this coffee immediately put you on your guard - they are dark as hell - one bean too many of this in your grinder and you'd think that you'd be blowing your head off. But it turns out to be a real sheep in wolf's clothing - we lowered the dose down for the first cup to 4 spoons, fearing the worst, and the end result was something so weak that even the two girls who shared the pot commented on how feeble it was. And one of them was an accountant. So for the next cup we spooned it up to max and made sure we ground it pretty fine to drain what we could from it. The result - much better - strong without killing us, yet still a tasty little brew. There's nothing fancy about it - no lemons or flowers, nothing out of the ordinary. Just a fairly decent cup of coffee - which in itself it a little disappointing as we've not had anything from Timor before and was hoping for a bit of a twist. A solid 8/10 though.

This coffee has been roasted so lightly and the beans are so light beige that they look like fossilised remains swept up from the floor of Starbuck’s Pompeii branch. Each bean has a lot of “chaff” in the middle too – after we’d ground them we had to put them through a bloody threshing machine. This is not a strong coffee – and you can’t overdo it either. We really spooned this up to the max. it’s a really fruity little coffee – not what we were expecting from a Caribbean coffee at all. It could easily be mistaken for a top-notch Kenyan. Packed full of flavour and with a nice creamy head on it – this really is a good 'un. I can only give it an 8/10 though as it just lacked punch for me.  But I still loved it. What am I saying?  Scrap that…it’s a 9/10.

Not renowned for it's coffee, we were a bit nervous with this one. It even comes from a tea producing region of China. Maybe these are just counterfeit tea leaves? The beans, it has to be said, look horrific. They are small, beige and dusty. They look like little bits of old chocolate that have gone white with age as they've been left in the corner shop window too long. There's no great smell when you make it either - you're just dealing with some plain, brown powder that could be anything. But in the cup it's actually ok. It won't set the world alight, but it does the job quite nicely. It's a niche coffee really - it's uniqueness is merely that is is Chinese - which actually is more uniqueness than some of the bland shite we've tasted. The nuttyness is there though - my first thought was chocolate, then chicory, then hazelnuts. None of which should be in my coffee, they should be in a box of Thorntons. 7/10 from Judge Nooge.

Coffee from Australia? You’ve got to be joking mate! Well… apparently not, and this is the evidence. Now you may normally associate North Queensland with drinking gay halves of weak lager in a rowdy pub, getting shit faced on just three of them, pogo-ing around to the strains of Gone Daddy Gone and the Hoodoo Gurus and finishing up with a right good old punch up with your mate. And his girl friend. Still – this is the morning after antidote. For a country so ill-famed for coffee this stuff is alright and worth it for the novelty value alone.  The beans are dry and only slightly oily, but give off a nice coffee smell – there’s not even a hint of stale Fosters.  We couldn’t taste the chocolate, thank God. We probably wouldn't bother with this again - but it was fun while it lasted, so it scores 6/10

Here at Judge Central we do like a nice Tanzanian and the higher it's grown, the better. And you don’t get much higher than Kilimanjaro. This batch must have had Chris Moyle’s large frame stomping all over them as the beans are small. They’re also pale and dusty, but after a good grinding the smell kicks out and you’ll be getting a citrus waft so familiar for coffees from this region. In our French press this really foamed up and kept its head even through pouring. It just looks very damn appetising. Plus it has the taste we wanted: citrus, lemon, flowery… whatever you want to call it. It’s different, quirky and good. The light roast also means you can’t cock it up. Your hands could be shaking more violently then the day after a week’s bender with Oliver Reed and you’ll still get a great cup. The only downside for us was as we like our coffee strong, we had to use a shovel when loading the grinder, which meant this packet didn’t go very far. 6 cups I ask you! So it’s an 8/10