Kenya Premium Machakos – Ngomano FCS – Peaberry

Description

Nothing else tastes like a nice Kenya coffee. Many consider them the all star of the coffee world due to them being brighter cup, cleaner cups with an incredible depth and potency of flavors. Peaberries are rounded beans, no flat side like traditional coffee. Usually 1 in about 40 beans is a peaberry. To produce straight peaberry offerings, they use special vibrating tables to separate them out. Often a little denser and smaller than the flat beans, they will taste similar, but have a slightly unique spin on the taste.

Machakos county is one of central Kenya’s largest, beginning south of Nairboi and spanning northeast along the borders of Kiambu, Muranga’a, and Embu counties, some of Kenya’s oldest coffee producing areas. Machakos is lesser-known than the highly competitive central counties of Kiambu, Kirinyaga, and Nyeri, and while it is commonly known as “Eastern” Kenya, it nonetheless is capable of producing excellent quality coffees, as it contains similar latitudes and elevations to the rest of the central area.

This particular lot comes from Ngomano “fly crop”, a smaller secondary harvest common in many equatorial coffee producing countries that follows a secondary rainy season. Fly crop Kenyas are not as large as the main harvest, but nonetheless can yield exquisite tasting, highly rated coffee and beautiful coffee. Plus super fresh beans in the off season is quite a perk!

Ngomano Factory is the sole washing station in the Ngomano Farmer Cooperative Society (FCS). The producer group belongs to the Machakos Cooperative Union, an umbrella organization that represents 28 societies in the county and offers benefits to its member commonly provided by 3rd party service providers elsewhere in Kenya, including dry milling, farmer training, marketing, and subsidized farm inputs like pesticides, fertilizer, and fungicides.

Kenya is of course known for some of the most meticulous at-scale processing that can be found anywhere in the world. Ample water supply in the central growing regions has historically allowed factories to wash, and wash, and soak, and wash their coffees again entirely with fresh, cold river water. Conservation is creeping into the discussion in certain places–understandably in the drier areas where water, due to climate change, cannot be as taken for granted—but for the most part Kenya continues to thoroughly wash and soak its coffees according to tradition. The established milling and sorting by grade, or bean size, is a longstanding tradition and positions Kenya coffees well for roasters, by tightly controlling the physical preparation and creating a diversity of profiles from a single processing batch.

Tasting Notes: Similar to it’s AA cousin, a great cup from light to dark. We preferred it at a nice medium roast, toned down the brightness a bit without burning out any flavor depth. A brighter cup with a medium to full body. Although this cup does have some acidic components, all in all, it would be considered a medium/low acidity Kenya, sometimes they are just teeth chattering. Starts with a lemony crispness, a little hint of red fruit, balances with a nice chocolate and herbal dark tone, just a speck of nuttiness in the aftertaste. A clean, balanced, and full flavored cup. A great example of a traditional Kenya. Darker roast levels get very chocolaty, will shows hints of spice, burnt sugar and nuttiness, turns it a bit thicker tasting, fuller bodied.  Although we enjoyed this best at lighter roasts, there are not many dark roast coffees that taste this complex making it wonderful light to dark roasting coffee.

Roasting Notes: Easy to roast, beautiful very fresh larger screened beans. Medium to low chaff levels. Surface color similar to many African and high altitude beans will darken quickly, looks a couple shades darker at first crack than many other origins. Just a little development past 1st crack is wonderful, if your a Kenya head, keep this one on the lighter side. If you are looking for a strong chocolate bomb, or do not like any citric crispness to the cup, close or touching 2nd crack will be the way to go. Not being a high acidity Kenya, we liked to keep the roast times a bit quicker, slow down this one too much in the roaster and it will be a bit flat tasting.