Organic Bali Blue Moon

McNulty's in the Village introduced me to this bean this summer. I was surprised how good it was. When I visited Bali many years ago, no coffee was grown there at that time to inform me. And frankly, I was suspicious of the bit too cute marketing in the name. Was it done to compensate for a mediocre product? My suspicions were entirely unfounded. We love this coffee! It is one of those beans that is satisfying just to smell as an open bag of beans. But unlike other beans we enjoy this way, we let this one linger longer, often a lot longer. It can be embarrassing to find oneself doing this to excess. You have been warned.Do not be impressed when any company labels this bean as special because it is "Organic". By Indonesian law, all Bali Blue Moon is organic. It is quite distinct in flavor from neighboring islands' Java and Sumatra coffee, although they too rank highly to me. Thankfully, this was also delivered very fresh and full of flavor.Unlike my disappointment with another coffee retailed by this same company, the Bali Blue Moon roast was done exactly as disclosed, a medium roast. I like a wide variety of coffees but really do insist that I receive the roast that is advertised. Roasting is not an arbitrary process. Each bean will have a roast that is best in order to deliver the things you love about that particular coffee. As customers, it is a matter of trust that we get what we expect and that is based upon what is described. In theory, any coffee's roast should be easily disclosed by looking at the prominently displayed roast meter. It provides dual indicators: color patches from light to dark and an obvious meter indicator's selection. In case you missed these, the coffee beans are also photographed. Three indicators in total, graphic illustration, the moving hand of a meter, and photograph make it easy to understand what the roast looks like before you buy. At least that is how it is supposed to work. Read my review of their Panama Boquete to see what can happen when the company fails to follow its own roast color ratings. Thankfully, this was not the case with its Bali Blue Moon beans. It matters. For example, there is a faint, underlying, almost spicy flavor to Balinese coffee that would be lost if it was under or over roasted. Should another company decide to significantly under or over roast these beans, that is fine too because you could easily avoid buying it as long as those three indicators accurately informed you what was inside the bag. If you are going to sell coffee online you better not fool your customers by mislabeling the roast. There are no such surprises when you walk into physical stores and can see the actual beans.I do not have any criticisms of this Bali Blue Moon coffee. You will know already if you tend to only drink the darkest roasts. If that is true, I would not recommend that you buy 5 pounds of a medium roast -- even of this exceptional quality -- coffee. Find a place to sample it first just to try it out before buying such a large amount.If you enjoy what my wife and I love about this coffee, note that the price here for this large bag is very attractive at $40. It is offered here at half the price we have spent elsewhere for this bean. Highly recommended.

this coffee is smooth and rich without bitterness or acidity . I have tried so many coffees both pods and bagged and they don’t compare. I grind the coffee and have fresh heaven in my coffee maker or keurig pods.

I’ve been ordering this coffee for several months now and have been very pleased with a consistent goodness and enjoyability of strength, taste, overall quality.

Very good coffee, good price.

Full bodied coffee with no bitterness or acid feel. Very smooth and rich. Comes super fresh. If you research Ethiopian coffee you find farmers and processors use virtually no chemicals growing their coffee, so it is healthier. Taste is great and its pure. High recommendation at a good price

Excellent coffee. No bitter taste. Smooth and very buttery tasting. Love it!

A few weeks ago I purchased the much cheaper version of this, the "Guji Sidamo" which was an OK coffee, so I figured I'd try this organic version as it said there would be blueberry and lighter roast notes.First off, it was not fresh. The expire date (1 year from roast date) was 2 months past when I got the bag. This is just too old to make good espresso. At $16/lb this is the same price range as some local roasters. When I got the non-organic, it had the same date, but at that time was only 6 weeks old, so usable.Now to the taste. It's on the light end of a medium roast. Meaning it's harder to dial in to prevent sour shots. Usually it's worth that hassle to get the fruity notes. However, on this coffee there were none of those notes present (maybe they were there when it was actually fresh?). So the end result is a coffee that can be bitter and sour at the same time, and has this little narrow range to dial in... and no reward at all for doing that. The non-organic version is just better balanced and easier to dial right off the bat.I did spend some time dialing as best as I could, but it didn't seem to make any difference. For reference I'm using a high extraction basket (3k hole), paper filter on the bottom, screen on top. It was best at a 2:1 shot, but again "best" was really just meh. As a turbo shot it just gets bitter. As a luongo, it's verrry bitter.I'm not buying this again. I *might* get the non-organic version, as it's a pretty good deal, but this organic version was basically a waste of money I should have spent on something local instead.

It's a good coffee, but overpriced for what it offers. The medium roast is actually lighter than medium so I had to grind it with the dark roastrd variant to actually get a medium roast taste. It's quality is higher than many on the market. I've tried other Ethiopian coffees that were better than this honestly.