roast | Trader Joe’s Rants & Raves (mostly raves, a few rants)

“With notes of clementine, vanilla and dark chocolate“

This is the latest Small Lot coffee Trader Joe’s has released, this one from the Republic of Rwanda, East Africa. Rwanda is described as the “land of a thousand hills”.

I think this is the first coffee I’ve tasted from Rwanda. In general I’ve found African coffees are interesting and unique, and I found this interesting with a unique taste. This coffee is grown high in the mountains, on a plantation where banana trees used to be. When I first tried it I didn’t love it but it kind of grew on me as I kept drinking it over the week. It’s an interesting coffee. Pretty tasty with background notes they describe as “clementine, vanilla and chocolate”. It is labeled “Medium Roast” which I find accurate. I might even go “light medium”. It had an interesting background note of…. yeah I guess you could say “clementine”.

Still I measure these Small Lot coffees from all the past ones I’ve tried. Many have been pretty good, some average with every now and then, one not worthy.

I have found however a few of them have been outstanding, incredible coffees. My all time favorite probably being that MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON – which was a gem of a coffee from Uganda. And there’s been a few others. So I always like to check out TJ’s Small Lot coffees, in case I might find another gem.

This RWANDAN coffee isn’t one of those outstanding Small Lot coffees, but it is kind of interesting and actually grew on me. If, like I do, you like to check out every Small Lot coffee they come out with, I would say worth this is one that is at least trying once. I don’t love it but I do like it. It is a dollar more at $11 than some coffees there.

$10.99 for a 12 oz bag

Side Note: This package has a “Roasted On” date! Bravo. I think that’s something new….

Whole Bean, African, 100% Arabica, #coffee, #small lot, #traderjoes

Trader Joe’s “BUUNNI Azmari Coffee” Afro-Latin blend

“This blend combines Ethiopian delicacy with Latin verve…Notes of chocolate, nougat, cherry”

A blend of African & Latin American coffees –

The terrific graphic design of this bag of BUUNII AZMARI coffee beans really caught my eye when I saw it recently in Trader Joe’s NEW PRODUCTS section. Bold bright colors and stylized images that kind of say “farming”….

The best news is that the coffee inside is as good as the outside. This Azamri BUNNII blend is an excellent coffee in a whole bean (light) medium roast. The bag says “medium” but its actually more like the so called blonde roast which has gotten a bit popular. Some people complain Trader Joe’s medium roasts are actually a shade darker than most “mediums” (me, i like dark). This coffee is from a smallish coffee outfit called BUUNNI COFFEE which I am glad to learn is sold under it’s own brand at Trader Joe’s, a kind of rare feat if you know TJ’s usually re-branding of stuff. The packaging for Trader Joe’s looks different from BUNNIs usual packaging so likely it was specially made especially for Trader Joes. Whoever did it did a great job of graphic design.

Opening the convenient zip closure (yet more good design) I got a lovely smell. When I ground the coffee up the aroma was truly excellent and it did have as the bag says, “notes of chocolate, nougat, cherry…”. This coffee has a perfect mix of the best of “African” and “Latin American” coffee styles, for good reason, as that is exactly what this blend is composed of: two Ethiopian single origin coffees mixed with a coffee from Honduras. It has that “winy” sharp African coffee note which that is then balanced by the Latin American smoother notes of the single origin Honduran. All around I found this to be an excellent blend, roasted perfectly to bring out the best of this coffee, in this case a bit of a blond roast. Trader Joe’s is selling it for $9.99 a bag (12 oz). I would buy this again, gladly and hope you give it a try; I kind of feel that everyone might like this coffee, which I’ve had at their original location (Buuni) when they had just opened years ago way up on Inwood at the tip of Manhattan.

I found this to be an impressive coffee for a fairly decent price, well worth checking out if you see it and are a real coffee lover!

BTW, this would be great mixed with darker blends too! I’ve done 50/50 with some dark ones and loved that mix.

update: i went back to buy more and couldn’t find it; I am thinking (hoping) just out of stock… we’ll see – update2 – its back in stock (jun 2022)