George Howell Coffee

Twelve of the 25 coffees George Howell keeps active are roasted light, more than land at any other point on the scale. The company has been roasting since 2004 and works out of the Northeast. What it sells is almost entirely single origins.

Twenty-three of the 25 active coffees are single lots and two are blends, which puts blends at 8 percent of the shelf. Nine countries are represented on that shelf at once. Colombia and Costa Rica lead with four lots each, Brazil and Kenya follow with three apiece, and El Salvador, Ethiopia, Mexico, Rwanda and Guatemala account for the remainder.

Processing is close to uniform. Twenty of the 23 single origins are washed and three are natural, so the differences a drinker tastes between two bags here come from where the coffee grew and how far the roast went rather than from anything that happened during fermentation. Twelve ounce bags run $20 to $36 with a median of $26, and the top of the range reaches $45. Two coffees are decaf. For a catalog this weighted toward light roasting, the cup notes point somewhere the roast level would not predict.

Single Origins

Blends

Roast Profile & Flavor Range

Light is the largest group, twelve of 25. Nine coffees land at medium, then the tail thins out with two at medium-dark and two at dark. The medium-light step is empty. Acidity averages just under the middle of the five-point scale, which reads as moderate rather than piercing, and body averages a little above the middle, so the cups carry more weight than the light-roast count might suggest.

Twenty of the 23 single origins are washed and the other three are natural. That ratio does most of the work in explaining the house character, since washed processing tends to leave origin and roast as the two variables a drinker can taste. Origins spread across nine countries, with Latin America carrying the bulk and East Africa represented by Kenya, Ethiopia and Rwanda. Twelve ounce bags run $20 to $36 against a $26 median.

What George Howell Coffee Coffees Tend to Taste Like

Dark chocolate is the most frequent note in the catalog by a clear margin, ten mentions against seven for orange in second place. That is a curious result on a shelf where light roasts outnumber every other level, and it suggests the chocolate is arriving with the bean rather than being built by the drum.

Orange heads the citrus line. Behind it sit the stone and orchard fruits, cherry and plum tied at six mentions each, with blackberry at three and blueberry at two. Caramel appears four times and a darker caramel twice more, while milk chocolate turns up three times and clover honey twice. Almond and clove show up in pairs. The shape of a typical cup is chocolate underneath, orange and red fruit above, held together by a sweetness that stays closer to honey than to sugar.

Why Buy George Howell Coffee

• Single lots over recipes: Twenty-three of the 25 active coffees are single origins. CoffeeByMe steers drinkers who are learning to tell countries apart toward catalogs built this way.

• A washed-forward shelf: Twenty of the 23 singles are washed, which keeps fermentation flavors out of the way and leaves origin as the thing you taste first.

• Light roasts that read dark: Twelve coffees are roasted light, yet dark chocolate leads the notes at ten mentions, a sweetness that came in with the bean rather than out of the drum.

Is George Howell Coffee Right for You?

Filter brewers who want origin character will get the most out of this catalog, particularly anyone who prefers washed coffees, because 20 of the 23 single origins are processed that way and the cup stays clean rather than fermented. The shelf also suits a drinker who likes comparing countries, since nine of them are available at the same time.

It is a harder sell for espresso. Two blends and two dark roasts make a narrow base for a milk-drink routine. Anyone chasing heavy fermentation will find little to work with, given three naturals and nothing anaerobic in the mix. The median 12 ounce bag costs $26 and the ceiling is $45, so it pays to check the tag.

Frequently Asked Questions