Buffalo Soldier from Marley Coffee. A light French roast coffee with a rich, bittersweet taste.

Thank you to the folks at Cooking.com for sending us this second sample of Marley Coffee.

The first of the coffees we tried was the Lively Up!, which is an organic, medium-roast, 5-bean blend.

This second blend, Buffalo Soldier, is a light French roast of a different blend of beans – including Ethiopian Yirgacheffe, combined with beans from Central America and Indonesia.

As always, we ground the beans fresh, brewed the coffee, let it cool for a couple of minutes, and then tasted it black.

This is a high-quality coffee. None of that bland smack to the palate you get with so much supermarket coffee. There is subtlety here. Lots of interesting tones.

The overall sense is of a medium-strength coffee. It is by no means mild, but nor is it a hard-hitting dark roast.

As with many stronger brews, there is a bitterness there, but it isn’t harsh. The bitterness is paired with a sweetness. And as you roll the coffee over your tongue, you get a hit of fruit as well.

Consider it the coffee equivalent of a quality dark chocolate, with just a hint of citrus rinds embedded in the chocolate.

We like it. The taste in clean and strong, without being harsh. And within the strength, you get some subtleties as well.

And it isn’t easy to combine strength and subtlety in a single blend.

A tip of the hat to the roaster!

You can learn more about Buffalo Soldier at Marley Coffee. 

About the author: Nick Usborne, aka Coffee Detective, is a writer and long-time coffee enthusiast. Read more…