A top quality Hawaiian bean from Maui, not Kona! Dry fragrance from this coffee has a muted fruity quality, with a dusting of cocoa powder. The flavors turn to a sweet grain, maple syrup, dark honey, and a Cocoa Puffs chocolate note. On the break there is a bit of sweet melted butter and a touch of chamomile tea. The cup has very low acidity, with a rustic sweetness, intense sweet fruit, and oily body. It has honey and maple sugar flavors, and a nice grain note, like honey wheat puffs. There is a muted, mild chocolate flavor, more like milk chocolate syrup, which is underscored by the thick body.

Peregrine Coffee is absolutely thrilled to offer our first Farm Direct bean.  After a few conversations with Roger Rittenhouse at Moki’s Farm in Hawaii, we will be bringing in small lots of this superb micro-lot coffee, direct from the farm.

What a surprise! Open the bag and these beans smell like…pizza! Absolutely — tomatoes, savory spices, and a meaty, steak-like sweetness, almost like brisket in a ketchup-heavy BBQ sauce.  The aromas change quickly on brewing heading toward heavy florals and some fruit. The cup is nicely balanced with a bright start, and a somewhat watery, dry mouthfeel.  Some coffees’ tastes turn up in one spot in your mouth – the tip or side of the tongue; this one you taste all over – it seems to throw off flavors in all directions.  It is a complex cup with a certain nutty-savory note that hints at salted peanuts. There is also watermelon rind, wrapped with tea-like tones.  Finally, there is the chocolate and anise-licorice path that leads right to the flowers — approaching Jasmine on the finish.  A long finish ends this very interesting coffee.

These are gorgeous beans, so large, even, and smooth, you could make jewelry from them. The coffee smells like dulce de leche, caramel with sweet nuts (marzipan and hazelnuts), mixed with sweet pipe tobacco and a slight saffron dustiness. The cup starts out with a satiny mouthfeel with great body. It is very balanced and elegant with a slight bright-lime acidity.  There is a subtle, consistent, fast fading, clean, smooth finish.  All the right things one expects from a great cup of coffee with no single dominant note.

Obama Java

From T-shirts to rap songs to sold-out Washington hotels, there’s enough commercial activity surrounding Barack Obama’s inaugural to resuscitate the economy (if it lasted more than a week).

The Peregrine Coffee Co., based in Tacony, has its own entry – a $17 Presidential Pack featuring two bags of custom-roasted coffee beans, one from an estate in Kenya, the birthplace of Obama’s father, the other from a farm in Hawaii, where Obama was born and spent most of his childhood.

The company’s owner and chief roaster is Kevin Lawrence, 40, a former marketing specialist with American Express and the Franklin Institute, who was drawn into the business after his coffee-maker died six years ago.

“First I was trying to find the best coffee pot, then I hooked up with a Web site for coffee geeks, next I found a subset of folks converting popcorn poppers into coffee roasters in their backyards,” Lawrence said. “The Internet is a dangerous thing.”

He opened Peregrine last June in a converted garage on Friendship Street, with a view of I-95. Lawrence imports raw beans from single-origin coffee farms around the world, roasts them to order for specific customers and delivers by priority mail in small batches, about half a pound, enough to sustain an average household for a week or 10 days. Any longer, he says, the coffee beans can’t be considered fresh.

“If you toast and brew it properly, it’s a totally different beverage,” said Lawrence, who compares his job to that of a wine steward, helping “clients” identify their tastes and match them to specific beans and roasts.

His analysis of the Presidential Package? The Hawaiian beans have a “chocolatey, nutty taste,” Lawrence said, while the Kenyan beans hint of grapefruit and black currants, sort of “fruity.” He denies that Republican spinmeisters have any influence on his descriptions. “Peregrine tries not to take a political stance,” he said.

Staff writers Bob Warner and Michael Hinkelman contributed to this report.

Have a news tip? Gossip? Suggestion? Contact Bob Warner at warnerb@phillynews.com, call 215-854-5885, or fax 215-854-5910.