Kenya - Muthuuzuni AA

cup profile.

blackberry | orchard fruit | black tea

This Fully Washed Muthunzuuni AA shows the distinct complex acidity we have come to expect from Kenyan coffees and the famous SL28 variety and its later hybrids Ruiru-11 and Batian. Bright malic acidity and complex fruit sweetness offers berry notes like blackberry and cranberry, and orchard fruits like apple, pear and plum. The medium juicy body gives way to a crisp finish with a pleasant tannic black tea quality.

about the region.

Given Kenya’s proximity to Ethiopia, coffee production started relatively late, but has quickly become a favourite origin for specialty coffee drinkers. Kenyan coffees are known for a complex fruit forward taste profile and a distinctly clean cup as a result of the meticulous washed processing developed in Kenya.

The Southern Machakos county is close to Nairobi and while it is lesser-known than the popular Kirinyaga and Nyeri regions Machakos lies at similar latitudes and elevations to the rest of Central Kenya and has the potential to produce exceptional coffees. Kenya and Colombia are the two most notable countries that can produce a second crop - or fly crop - each year, and Machakos is one region that sees this second flowering with cherries ripening around the fall. Previously the fly crop was often expected to have lower quality, but with increased temperatures year round, the climate in the fall is improving the quality of this second crop meaning that gems can be found year round here.

about the washing station.

Muthuuzuni Factory is the sole washing station in the Muthuuzuni Farmer Cooperative Society with over 1000 small-holder members who cultivate beautiful coffee cherries on an average half hectare (5000 m2) farm. As these hand-picked and sorted cherries are delivered each day to Muthuuzuni Factory the team puts the coffee through a two stage process of dry and then wet fermentation to develop the fruit qualities and break down the mucilage. The parchment is then washed and the crisp white parchment coffee is laid out to dry for two weeks on raised beds where even airflow and regular turning ensures consistency.

Muthuuzuni FCS belongs to the Machakos Cooperative Union, an umbrella organization that represents 28 societies in the county that offers benefits including dry milling, farmer training, marketing, and subsidized farm inputs like pesticides, fertilizer, and fungicides. At the dry mill the coffee is perfectly sorted by screen size and density. This lot is graded AA, which identifies the largest screen size, but most importantly the consistent sorting allows for even heat transfer during roasting.

about the varieties.

Kenya is known best for two varieties, SL28 and SL34. These are the most prized selections made at Scott Laboratories during variety development and seed testing in the 1930s to identify high cup quality and rust resistance. SL28 and SL34 are both known for complex fruit forward profiles and seeds have now been shared throughout the coffee producing world with many prized SL lots from Central and South America.

In the 1960s a Coffee Berry Disease epidemic sparked further variety development looking for a resistant plant to replace the nearly 50% of Kenya crops that died in the outbreak. A research centre at Ruiru first created a complex hybrid male parent by breeding notably high quality varieties SL28, SL34, Sudan Rume, and Bourbon, with Timor hybrid lines for resistance. This was bred with the female parent, a compact Catimor variety. The top selection was Ruiru-11, which has become widely popular in Kenya.

The most recent development in this story is Batian, a very exciting high quality and resistant variety released in 2010. Batian is a fifth generation selection from the male parent of Ruiru-11 that shows exceptional cup quality and now 15 years later is showing incredible promise as plants reach maturity.