About the coffee
- Cupping notes: Very sweet, bright acidity, with creamy body and mouth feel. Notes of grapefruit, peach, and tangerine.
- Cultivation: Grown in volcanic soil in Central Kenya on the slopes of Mt. Kenya.
- Tree type: SL-28, SL-34, Ruiru 11
- Altitude: 4,600-6,000 feet
- Preparation: Fully Washed, Kenya-style raised drying beds
About the people who grow it
Top and bottom photos: Wikimedia Commons
Kenya occupies a special place in the heart of gourmet coffee lovers the world over. Straddling the equator, the production areas benefit from high altitudes and rich volcanic soils, and are blessed with a coffee culture and system which promotes and rewards quality. Kenyan coffees are sought as both a single origin offering, as well as a quality-improving blend component.
This lot of Kenya “Peaberry Plus” (meaning just slightly larger than a straight peaberry) is sourced from the Kenyan open auction system, which is part of the Nairobi Coffee Exchange. The quality of coffee and transparency in access has allowed for strong prices relative to other origins. Most coffee is grown in the hills surrounding Mount Kenya, where the rich soil helps produce high quality coffee. Farmer plots are exceptionally small and are generally classified by number of trees in production rather than the physical area of the farm. This allows farmers to exercise significant control over the coffee picked and delivered to the local wet mill. These mills have an abundance of water, which allows for the high-end washing methods that showcase the hallmark Kenyan profile.
The strong social structure built around these mills (or “factories”) provides for vibrant rural coffee communities where generations of farmers uphold traditional values and practices. At the mills coffee is sorted, de-pulped and fermented. All Kenyan coffees are dried on raised drying tables for about two weeks. Coffees are then rested in conditioning beds for several weeks, where the moisture content stabilizes, enabling a sturdier bean structure that holds on to its sugar content during storage and shipping.
This lot of Kenya “Peaberry Plus” (meaning just slightly larger than a straight peaberry) is sourced from the Kenyan open auction system, which is part of the Nairobi Coffee Exchange. The quality of coffee and transparency in access has allowed for strong prices relative to other origins. Most coffee is grown in the hills surrounding Mount Kenya, where the rich soil helps produce high quality coffee. Farmer plots are exceptionally small and are generally classified by number of trees in production rather than the physical area of the farm. This allows farmers to exercise significant control over the coffee picked and delivered to the local wet mill. These mills have an abundance of water, which allows for the high-end washing methods that showcase the hallmark Kenyan profile.
The strong social structure built around these mills (or “factories”) provides for vibrant rural coffee communities where generations of farmers uphold traditional values and practices. At the mills coffee is sorted, de-pulped and fermented. All Kenyan coffees are dried on raised drying tables for about two weeks. Coffees are then rested in conditioning beds for several weeks, where the moisture content stabilizes, enabling a sturdier bean structure that holds on to its sugar content during storage and shipping.