Coffee Review: Kicking Horse Decaf

Kicking Horse Decaf Coffee Review

Today I review Kicking Horse Decaf. I picked this bag up at my local health food store mostly because I like supporting local businesses when I’m able, and my local economy matters to me. Plus, the folks at the cash registers are always a riot and their eccentric stories are even more entertaining. You know exactly what I mean too…..

The Kicking Horse Coffee Company

Anyway, Kicking Horse brand coffee is located in Canada and the company dedicates significant energy to fair trade coffee. Even more, the beans are certified organic. Additionally I give them props for their focus on environmental sustainability. We all need to do our part when we can.

Tasting

As usual, I enjoyed a cup with my morning poetry. This particular day I read Wendell Berry. It’s important to realize that most coffee will pair with Wendell Berry’s poetry, so the cup would be exceptionally bad to be noticable. I found that I enjoyed the coffee as part of the poetic experience.

A key point for coffee tasting, for me anyway, is the aroma. We taste with our nose before we taste with our mouth. I detected forest floor, dark baker’s chocolate, and a hint of… perhaps the only way to term it is old man’s cologne.

The tasting is where the flavor explosion happens. I’m still on the fence as to how I feel about this particular explosion… It’s robust, almost too robust. It has hints of dark chocolate with undertones of citrus. But, unfortunately, the subtleties are not present.

The coffee lacks a certain delicacy that keeps it out of the 90s score range. It’s personality is a bit to brash and extraverted for a  decaf.

I deducted points because of a harsh bitterness to the finish that lingered on the palate.

The real question is simple, would I buy another bag? I’m not sure. My espresso machine has ground most of this one and it has yet to convince me to order again given its price to rating ratio. But hey, if you like decaf as robust as hell itself, go for it.

Kicking Horse Decaf Score: 88.

If you would like to read more of my coffee reviews, check out my coffee page.