Description
This peaberry, washed-process lot is from from Kamundu Estate in Kiambu, Kenya. Kamundu is a 460 acre coffee farm first established by British colonists but is now one of 6 estates owned and operated by Sasini, a publicly listed company with a majority Kenyan ownership.
Contrary to most American coffees, the bulk of coffee production in Africa is small holder, aggregate coffee. Estate coffee like this are often a rare gem. Estates have the advantage of being able to control both growing and processing, often having dedicated agronomists and nurseries providing healthier and happier trees.
Sasini’s estates have long placed an emphasis on equity and community. In the case of the estates’ workers this involves the provision of living quarters, early child education, union membership and guaranteed payment above minimum wage. In collaboration with Covoya and over 30 of our customers in Europe, they have also been able to invest further in the local primary school Njenga Karume. This has principally been through the building of a new computer lab to equip students with the IT skillset to maximise their oppotunities in an increasingly digital world.
Tasting Notes: Full bodied, spicy and exotic, a great example of a Kenyan coffee at a wonderful price. One sip will let you see what makes Kenya beans so different and special. Hints of acidity balanced with strong black tea spice. Lower acidity than the AA and best from a medium to dark roast. Lighter roasts accentuate the acidity in the cup but can leave the cup a bit more herbal. Medium roasts move the acidity to the background and greatly accentuate the spicy chocolaty notes in the cup. Dark roasts become very stout like and strong, bakers chocolate and spice with low acidity.
Roasting Notes: A nice screen of coffee, easy to roast. Low to medium chaff and even roasting making it an easy bean to play with. Similar to other Kenyans and many Africans, the coffee darkens up quickly which can be a little deceptive, I would say the beans look 1 shade darker in the roaster than they actually are, assuming you are used to roasting Central or South American coffees.
Kiambu county sits adjacent to Nairobi, Kenya’s capital city, and is a coffee powerhouse. Along with an extensive community of coffee mills, exporter warehouses and quality labs, and the Coffee Research Institute (near Ruiru Town, after which the disease-resistant hybrid is named), Kiambu is also home to many of Kenya’s largest and oldest coffee estates. Despite the vast number of smallholder farmers in Kenya the estate system persists, and in many cases reflects both Kenya’s colonial origins and its current identity as a self-actualized producer of some of the world’s most obsessed-over profiles.
Coffee’s history in Kenya is astonishingly short compared to Ethiopia, its neighbor to the north, with the introduction of coffee occurring around the turn of the 19th century at the hands of British missionaries who brought bourbon-lineage coffee trees from Brazil. As the value of the cash crop grew in the European marketplace, the British settlers would force indigenous Africans out of the trade by outlawing coffee production outside their colonial estate network. This however did not stop the British from requiring unpaid labor from the same population to further reduce their costs and boost output for the colony. It wouldn’t be until the years of conflict prior to Kenya’s independence, from 1952-1960, that indigenous Africans would be permitted to plant coffee—although for years afterward plantings were severely limited and none of the coffee produced by smallholders was permitted to be consumed. Since independence, the large estate holdings have evolved to reflect Kenya’s modern demographic: ownership can be single families, corporations, or groups of shareholders.
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