Customer Reviews

Organic Camano Island Coffee Roasters Sumatra, Dark Roast, Whole Bean, 5-Pound Bag

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I just recieved this coffee and I have brewed about 20 cups of coffee so far. I use a burr grinder and a very nice Starbucks drip coffee maker. In fact, I am enjoying a cup of the cofffe right now after dragging my lazy behind out of bed at 9am<g>.

I am very pleased with this roast. The beans arrived fresh and well packed with a valve on the heavy poly bag. The beans are of a uniform roast with a nice oily sheen throughout. There is no chaff mixed in with the beans. I do some home roasting of my own beans so I have an idea of what the process is and I can state confidently that these are well roasted, cleaned of chaff and that the roast is in fact a dark roast.

The coffee tastes just as I like it, a full rich flavor without that acidic slightly burned flavor of a French roast. The taste is very smooth and rich, the main traits that attracted me to Starbucks coffee, craft roasters and eventually home roasting.

I get free shipping from Amazon and I bought this on their subscription program, so it cost me $31 plus tax. I think this is a very good price and I would gladly make this roast my daily brew.

I recommend this roast without reservation.

-Mike

I have been chasing that perfect cup for some time now, lately through Amazon by buying and splitting the bags with a neighbor. I use a press, the neighbor goes drip. The first bag of this Sumatra was the best consumer coffee that either of us had ever found. It shipped to us extremely fresh, still working off gas in the bag and foaming in my press pot. The aroma from the bag was strong and wonderful and it carried through to the press and into the cup. Bag #1 was easily the best coffee either of us had ever brewed.

The second bag was quite a disappointment, not stale but also not really fresh, with only marginal aroma in the bag and not even recognizable as coffee in the cup. However, even at that the flavor still matched up close to our previous best finds here at Amazon- about the Fogbuster level. We decided to give it another try, and bag #3 was somewhere in between, but still only a pretender when compared to that first bag.

One interesting thing about this coffee, which I have experienced with no other: I am single and make a press first thing in the morning. Then (coffee connoisseurs stop reading now) warm additional cups up in the microwave as the morning goes on. Something about this coffee takes the microwave rewarming far, far better than any other coffee I have ever used. I don't understand why, but it does- all the way into the evening if need be (OK, I'll admit it, sometimes even overnight). Single guy, what can I say, but that is a significant bonus for me.

My shipments come from Lexington, KY. I assume Amazon has warehouses around the country. Part of my fresh/not-so-fresh problem might be due to the volume consideration and turnaround at that particular warehouse. We have decided to give the Sumatra one more try but I feel we will more than likely be moving along after bag #4. I'll let you know how it goes.

We've been experimenting with whole bean coffees. We love the rich flavor of Camano Island coffee. The is no bitter taste and good aroma too. It's my coffee of choice, try it you'll love it.

I agree with Sarah. We have really enjoyed this dark tasty coffee and intend to buy more.

This is a wonderful product. I've already gone through the first shipment and I'm readying to purchase more. AAAA++++

This coffee is made across the passage from me. Much better price than I can get locally. I am normally a French roast drinker and I find this coffee a little less complex and not as rich as I normally drink. However many will enjoy it as it is definitely a premium coffee. I hope to try their one of their other blends once I am through this five pounds.

I initially hated this coffee, until I learned that the problem wasn't the coffee but my brewing technique. This isn't a great coffee, but it can be a reasonably good coffee if you brew it right. My problem was that initially I was not brewing it correctly.

I'm still not using fancy coffee grinding or brewing equipment, but now I follow brewing guidelines that you can get on any good coffee lover website, including brewing at the right temperature, preheating the cup and filter holder, rinsing the filter, and pouring water into the ground coffee in the right way.

I use a Melitta style drip filter. I have a Bodum French Press that improves the taste even more, but I choose to use a paper filter because studies have indicated that paper filters eliminate most of the components in coffee that raise LDL and hence cholesterol (look up "Health effects of coffee" in Wikipedia for more info).

I keep the beans in a half dozen baggies in the freezer and just remove them from the freezer as I need them.

One thing I learned from my brewing experiments is that brewing technique may help a mediocre coffee more than a really good coffee. Using my former poor brewing techniques, Camano Island Sumatra tasted terrible but Peet's Sumatra and Starbucks Sumatra both tasted good (though the Starbucks had more variation in quality). Improving my brewing technique made the Peets somewhat better but improved the Camano Island Sumatra dramatically. I haven't tried the Starbucks since changing my brewing technique, so I can't report on that.

If you're looking for a great coffee, this isn't it, but if you're looking for a decent-tasting inexpensive Sumatra and are willing to use standard recommended brewing techniques, Camano Island Sumatra can be a good choice.

we have been using starbucks coffee for about 4 years and when we saw this coffee on amazon we read the reviews and decide to try it. It was very good, not bitter, we like our coffee quite strong so that was a pleasant surprise.

I like my coffee nice and bold. I normally drink Starbucks Sumatra blend which has been my long-time favorite. I decided to give the Organic Camano Island Sumatra Dark Roast Whole-Bean coffee a try and boy am I happy I did. The coffee arrived tightly sealed in a clear bag. I will warn you that it's difficult to impossible to open this bag in a way they you can continue to store the beans in it. I would be prepared with some type of storage container of some sort. I opened the bag and found the most fragrant, freshest coffee that I have found so far. The beans were nice and oily the way I like them. I ground them very fine like espresso and this is one of the best cups of coffee that I have ever tasted. I am absolutely very impressed with this coffee, especially since I had never heard of the brand before. Not to mention with the subscribe and save discount I was able to get a very good price on this coffee. I will definitely be a return customer time and time again. I feel very comfortable recommending this coffee to everyone.

I love coffee!! This one is especially great. There's a wonderful richness to the blend without the bitter after taste. I am anxious to sign up for regular shipments of this coffee, but wanted to taste it before committing to this service.