Kenya Grapefruit Champagne

A BAckstory

We knew we either wanted to compliment, or completely contrast the flavors of our last release (Ethiopia Lemon Candy). We spent hours of research looking for the perfect samples of coffee from Kenya (to compliment) as well as Peru (to contrast). To be honest, all of the sample coffees we roasted were phenomenal. We decided to go with Kenya because this is the last time we will get to taste coffees from this country’s 2022 harvest season that are still tasty and vibrant in acidity. Luckily, this coffee was stored extremely well in a temperature controlled warehouse in New Jersey. This coffee really stood out on the cupping table with a classic Kenyan brightness and a near-overwhelming powerful punch of incredible flavors!

When selecting samples of green coffee to roast and test, we were requesting coffees away from the more well-known Nyeri region. We wanted Kenyan coffees that were more towards the east/northeast regions. We’ve recently experienced a few Kenyan coffees in this area that truly blew us away and reminded us a bit of that “traditional” Kenyan flavor which is famous for having intensely bright and tart acidity with maximum flavor presentation. We wanted to explore the flavor potential of these less popular regions of Kenya in hopes we’d find a game-changing coffee, or one with brighter and more complex high-note acidity than what we’ve been tasting from Nyeri over the past couple of years.

Today, you cannot get Kenyan coffees that taste like how they did just a few years ago. We call these the “traditional” or “classic” Kenyans. There are a lot of theories as to why, but we believe it is a combination of Kenyas decline in production over the years leading to the abandonment of their famous “double-washed” processed coffees (which was originally practiced because of previous high-volume production chain issues), along with a lower production of the Batian variety, and more Ruiru 11 production being grafted onto roots on SL varieties possibly lowering the quality cup score. Many coffee experts have openly stated they have given up on finding this “traditional” Kenyan coffee flavor profile that was incredibly common just a half-decade ago. We’ve heard from some of them that the only true 90+ scoring washed coffees were ONLY from Kenya, and because of this decline in the “traditional” Kenyan flavor profile, you cannot find a single 90+ scoring washed coffee in the world that is currently in production…Unless you search for a vacuum sealed Kenyan coffee that had been produced and perfectly stored in a freezer many years ago.

….That is mind bending.

I do want to mention that just because we don’t taste “traditional” Kenyans like we used to years ago, Kenya is still producing some of more favored, beautiful coffees that can compete against anything else in the world and would still come out in the top bracket…No question! So, even though our perception of Kenya may have changed, it is still producing amazing coffee that can have incredible flavor representation of its regions, and its flavor potential is still extremely diverse. That is something I really want to highlight. We could only roast Kenyan coffees, have a diverse-flavored menu and would be extremely happy to only carry this countries coffee (we’ve definitely thought about it!).

On the flip side of “traditional” Kenyans being gone for so many years, we hear Kenyan coffee cup scores since the 2020 harvest are actually increasing! 2020 was a bad year for Kenya because there was too much rain post harvest, so they had trouble drying the coffee. Though the last few years have had good weather post picking, the quality has been increasing pretty considerably in cup scores noted by Nordic Approach across hundreds of coffees! …That is something that’s NOT being talked about, which we need to bring up.

The Variety

Diving more into the topic of variety, we have been fortunate to taste single-variety lots from Kenya via Nordic roaster, Coffea Circulor’s Kenyan program. Because of them, we were able to taste Ruiru 11 and Batian varieties independently of each other (no variety blends. This is nearly unheard of in Kenya). We were shocked at how different they were from each other! We were also surprised at how low-quality Ruiru 11 tastes (as a washed coffee. We’ve tried more fermented Ruiru coffees that can take phenomenal, but we believe the process Carrie’s this and not the varieties flavor traits), and how “traditional” Kenya the Batian variety tasted. We strongly think If you were to double wash a Kenyan that had a higher-than-we-see-today amount of the Batian variety combined with SL28 and SL34, you can bring back tradition Kenyan coffees that can score over 90 points. (I must say coffee scores are incredibly inconsistent. When I say over 90 points, i’m referring to a score that is essentially a higher score than any other washed processed coffee we are scoring today).

This is a AA screen size Kenyan, meaning it only consists of the largest beans (as opposed to AB, which consists of both a large, and smaller blend). This leads to enhanced, bright acidity in place of reduced “chocolatey” notes and jam-like textures and flavors you would often get from a smaller screen size. AA are often regarded as the highest quality, cleanest flavor presentation coffees available from Kenya (though there are always exceptions). If you’ve never had an incredible AB experience, I’d highly suggest purchasing an AB Kenya from a roasting company that uses a fluid bed roasting machine. It’s even roast development helps to not over and under roast different sized beans.

Your coffee is mostly SL28 and SL34 (with a very small amount of Ruiru 11). You will get the famous brightness, flavor clarity, and high-quality flavors our industry is known to love from these varieties. We’ve tried many SL28/SL34-only Kenyan coffees and have always been blown away by their floral and high-note acidity presentation. From hibiscus tea to rhubarb, bright yellow/orange fruits (depending on roast) to the famous bright red fruits to heavily textured sweetness, SL’s in Kenya are sure to please the flavor explorers of coffee!

your coffees flavor

Think clean, clear, and vibrant! There is always a tart, slightly sour, strong acidic note to this coffee reminiscent of grapefruit. With lower ratios, it also reminds us of sweet rhubarb. In our opinion, the best Kenyan coffees are very sweet, have incredible texture that completely coats your tongue like butter and just lingers for a while, and also have a clear acidic presentation of a single main note, while having an incredible amount of depth, especially in the finish. That describes this coffee very well. We opted for a more effervescent acidity instead of juicy and round (learn more about this on KGC’s Uncover My Roast), and man did we deliver on that! It’s vibrant, it’s sparkling, and it’s clear!

As for the texture, we always aim to push the boundaries between the lightest possible roast for maximum acidic clarity and the highest amount of texture and sweetness possible. This is intentionally done at the roaster. One of our favorite roasters that does this extremely well is Tim Wendelboe. They roast very light for “maximum sweetness” as Scott Rao infamously said. We’d have to chime in and say we agree. Tim Wendelboe can push out texture like nearly no other light roaster consistently can. We have been studying what he has been doing for a while now and tasting many of his coffees. We’d have to say, this is a very similar textural experience to a Tim Wendelboe light roasted coffee.

When tasting this coffee, we had to ask ourselves, it’s sparkling, its vibrant, it’s citrusy, so champagne strikes a chord automatically for us, but what “kind” is it?! This coffee is very coating (especially with more developed roasts) and this Kenyan is so sweet, so It made sense to list the sweetest commonly available champaign, Demi-Sec, on our bag!

Ending Thoughts

Let this be a starting point for you to go on your own personal flavor journey with your coffee! You may discover many flavors we never picked up on, or may have a different flavor experience, and that’s all part of the fun in Specialty Coffee! Visit the moving Flavor Wave at the top of this post and see how many of these flavors you can pick up on! These flavors account for what we’ve tasted with this coffee, and what our importers have tasted. See how many you can pick up on and see if you can create unique new ones that aren’t listed (be sure to let us know, of course)!

*Checkout our Uncover My Roast for this coffee if you want to learn about how we roasted it!

Happy drinking!