Starbucks Aged Sulewesi Kalosi Review

I just tried a cup of Starbucks Aged Sulewisi Kalosi, from the ultra premium (expensive) coffees they make a single cup at a time, and here is my favorable review - I like it!

I like it a lot. Lets preface this by saying I am not a massive Starbucks fan. Sometimes I do like a cup of somewhat over roasted coffee, sometimes I don’t, but I always used them when I wanted a cup of quality coffee and didn’t know where to go; for example in airports, when traveling, etc. I’ve gotten cup of lukewarm dishwater disguised and sold as coffee too many times and thrown it away, and “lukewarm dishwater” does NOT describe Starbucks! Still, I’d joke that they travel the world, find the best coffees, and roast the hell out of them so they all taste the same – half jokingly.

I’ve developed more of a taste in the last year or so, and even to go the local Starbucks occasionally to hang out, drink coffee, and work on my laptop as a nice break from the office.

I also love aged Indonesian coffee! My favorite ever was an aged Sumatran from the Coffee Connection, a killer place in Boston (I went to the Coolidge Corner, Brookline location) that unfortunately Starbucks bought and swallowed up. It wasn’t always available, but when it was I’d stock up and loved it!

The Aged Sulewisi Kalosi (misspelled “Sulewisi” at the local shop), from the town of Kalosi, Sulewesi, Indonesia, was $4 and change for a medium, more than twice the price of their normal brewed coffees. Harvested in 2005, it was aged on the Island of Sulewesi for a year and then somewhere in Southeast Asia for another 3. It’s grown by small farmers, or actually normal sized farmers with small family farms, around Kalosi. It is then harvested and “prepared using a semi-washed Indonesian processing method referred to as Giling Basah.”

Starbucks brews it cup by cup, placing the ground coffee in a filter and passing hot water through it. What’s it taste like?

It’s full bodied and rich with lots of earth and dried fruit tones. Rather intense complexity and delicious. Some creaminess is layered under the richness and it has a wonderful coarseness on the palate, and is extremely long – I can still taste it despite having had my last sip a couple of minutes ago. It’s only a moderately dark roast at most, which lets the flavors come out very well.

The Starbucks Web site says “woodsy herbal complexities layered with flavors of warm baking spices and toasted marshmallow that linger with a rich mouth feel,” and that’s accurate, although I think my description is better.

I give the Aged Sulewisi Kalosi two big thumbs up! This stuff rocks and is worth the tariff. You can’t buy a bag of beans as they are out unfortunately, but many stores still have it by the cup. And for those of you who know me, although I’ve traveled somewhat extensively in Indonesia, I have yet to see the Island of Sulewesi.