Kenya, East Africa
Kenya has long been established as a leader in high-grade, East African arabica. Its best lots are famed for their fruity, clean, complex profiles, offering balance and pronounced tasting notes of everything from berries and stone fruit to sweet citrus, rightly fetching a handsome auction price.
The Nairobi Coffee Exchange auctions are a quality-based payment system that functions as the nerve centre of a well-oiled industry built upon decades of lab-based Agri-research, applied farming and a strong network of cooperatives. At the exchanges, small farmers have a ‘seat at the table’ so to speak, where they can access a wide range of international buyers, who have the will and capital to outbid one another, in the perennial quest for a perfect cup.
Truth be told, Kenya’s growers are owed much of today’s industry praise. For generations they have pushed the envelope and tested the limits of farming and processing capabilities in order to embrace advances in growing science.
The main growing regions extend from the 5,000 metre central peak of Mount Kenya all the way to the outskirts of the capital city of Nairobi to the south. Another portion of arabica farmlands lie on the slopes of Mt. Elgon, against Kenya’s western border with Uganda.
Varietal: Arabica
Producer: Various Smallholders
Elevation: 1,400 – 2,000 MASL
Processing: Washed Then Sun-dried
Region: Mt. Kenya, Central Kenya
Cup Profile: very bright acidity, orange, medium body, notes of currant, black tea and a hint of blackberry
