Kenya: Kiriga, AA

Tasting notes

In the roaster’s words

Kenya: Kiriga, SL28 & SL34 AA, Washed Blackcurrant and green apples up front slip into dark chocolate on the finish, with a delicate molasses edge to the aftertaste of this classic cup. We have been buying Kenyan coffee from Kiriga for over a decade – it is easily one of our favourite producer relationships and the coffees from this farm get Team Ozone excited every time they come back into season. We genuinely believe that they produce some of the best Kenyan coffee money can buy. This year we will have three lots of single origin Washed Kenyan coffee on sale from the Kiriga Estate: an AA, an AB, and a PB. Kiriga Estate: The Perfect Place To Grow Coffee Kiriga is located in the Central Province of Kenya, towards the south-west corner of the country. It is roughly 5km from the nearby industrial hub of Thika town, and 50km north-east of the Kenyan capital Nairobi. The estate sits on the very edge of Muranga county, separated from the bordering Kiambu county by the Chania river, which 4km downstream forms the famous Chania and Thika Fourteen Falls, a popular tourist destination named for the 14 distinct waterfalls cascading from this broad section of the river. The river is a vital water source for the estate, both for crop irrigation and the wet mill. The 130-acre Kiriga estate sits at 1,550 to 1,650 metres above sea level and has roughly 54 hectares currently producing coffee. What Is AA Grade Coffee? The vast majority of this land is planted with the highly prized SL28 varietal, alongside 2 hectares of Ruiru 11, 1 field of Batian, and a sprinkling of K7. All varieties of coffee vary in size from bean to bean, so buyers have historically categorised lots by bean size, considering the very biggest beans the highest quality. This sizing is done by passing the coffee through sorting screens (picture layers of flat colanders with decreasing holes on each level) that catch the corresponding circumference coffee as they are shaken through. In most countries the screens are stratified by 1/64th of an inch sizes, so a screen 18+ indicates that all beans are 18/64ths of an inch or bigger. In Kenya these screen sizes are named. Kenya AA coffee stops at screens 17 and 18 (roughly 15-20% of the crop, getting the highest prices), Kenya AB coffee stops at screens 15 and 16 (another 40% or so of the coffee produced, a bit cheaper), any beans below screen 15 are C (typically going to Commodity lots, however we’ve had some delicious C grade coffee from Kiriga in previous y

Notes

AA grade Kenyan coffee from Kiriga Estate.