Handsome Coffee Roasters
Wrecking Ball
And definitely Heart

Everything I've had recently from all three has been stellar.

I'll second Velton's Coffee - Bonsai Blend. Superb taste!

There are so many fantastic roasters, I could try a new one every week and never run out?

I think some unusual blends would be nice. I was looking at the suggestion of Kifu. They have some interesting blends, like the Black Cow Blend. Nice pricing as well.

http://www.kifubeans.com/kifubuybeans_i ... tId=383720

PT coffee roaster. We've tried both the funky monkey and southpaw and found them both great to pull and to taste.
Verve out of Santa Cruz is another with a couple good espresso blends.
+1 also for Barismo.

+3 for Velton's. Only done 1lb of Bonsai Blend but vary different from everything I've been using.
One of the only blends that I can taste almost every flavor listed on the bag. The fruit are almost candy tasting. A little sweet for my taste. Buy vary gourmet. I need to order a couple of lbs. because I spent to much time thinking about this blend.

tekomino wrote:Ain't going to happen.

I think most of these roasters are reviewed well already. I wish HB went little bit off the beaten path and reviewed not well known but deserving roasters. We readers would benefit to find out about them and roasters would love to be found. Suggestions:

http://northboundcoffee.com/
http://www.veltonscoffee.com/
http://coava.myshopify.com/
http://www.kifubeans.com

Why won't they review it especially after it was by far the #1 requested..

Speaking to the request to include Redbird:

tekomino wrote:It ain't going to happen.

haunce wrote:Why won't they review it especially after it was by far the #1 requested..

I agree, it should be reviewed. I didn't really like it once I learned more about what espresso could taste like, it is nonetheless one of the more popular blends out there. I think we should be true to our mission, educate and advance the art of espresso. If that means giving an honest but maybe not so glowing review once in a while, so be it.

mitch236 wrote:If that means giving an honest but maybe not so glowing review once in a while, so be it.

Since we do so few reviews per year (ten in 2012, eight in 2011), I would rather dedicate our limited capacity to coffees we recommend without reservation. In the last two years, we didn't always agree 100%. Our gentleman's agreement is that if the majority would recommend a given coffee, the public review goes forward (the dissenter(s) may or may not participate at their choice). If, on the other hand, a given coffee fails to persuade a majority of the reviewers to recommend it, we skip it.

It's good to put one's expectations into perspective.

Some reasonably well-funded review operations do try to cover the waterfront, and report both praise and pans. Consumer Reports, for example, will set up a review criteria for product X, buy some sort of broad selection of examples that is as representative as possible, then judge the products performance against their criteria through an engineered test protocol.

They have made a sustainable operation out of this for a long time, but such an approach is not without difficulties. While the approach has obvious integrity, not everyone will agree with their criteria in a given case, and some people will wax eloquent about how "useless" and "biased" they are. Oh well.

Thanks Dan, for the explanation. I certainly understand and appreciate the level of effort we are gifted with and enjoy.

We are not going to publish nasty reviews; the Midwestern adage of saying something nice or nothing at all applies. The only change we are contemplating is to allow reviewers who think a coffee is exceptional (see the site motto) to post reviews even when they are in a minority. In this case we would say something like "six people reviewed the coffee, of whom two thought it exceptional. Here are their reviews."