This Saturday starts with a beautiful coffee from Kenya. What do you know about Kenya coffee grading?

Well, my Saturday morning isn’t much different than usual. The little was awake as early as 5:45, but luckily we managed to make him sleep again. Well, this continued till 7:15 which was somehow acceptable time to get out from the bed. Now he is dealing with different kitchen stuff, but he is calm for now.

This week’s post will include an espresso coffee! I’m still enjoying the Space Blend from the last week’s post, and I seem to enjoy this coffee even more with the time, but now let’s see what is in the espresso portafilter.

Here we have a Kenya Nyeri Gatugi AB coffee. Kenya always gives us so much great coffees. If I buy a Kenyan or Ethiopian coffee, I’m always sure that this choice is the right one. The coffee is not a single origin one, rather than it is a mixture of beans from several small farm holders. Varieties of the beans are SL 28 and SL 34. These varieties were originally selected in Africa and most specifically Kenya and Uganda. These are tall plants which grow really nicely on higher altitudes, but susceptible to several deceases. I know that coffee plantations are usually in the mountains, but these beans have been grown at 1600-1800m, which is pretty high, in my opinion.

Kenyan coffees are usually indexed with different letters, but do you know what these letters mean?

For instance this coffee is indexed as an AB coffee. These letters refer to the bean size, at least for the Kenyan coffees. These beans are relatively large, but smaller than the AA size. The biggest ones are under the E grade, which comes from the word Elephant. This may be the most accurate word to describe something big, right? 😁

One interesting grade in the Kenyan coffees are PB beans, which have only one single coffee bean in the cherry rather than the usual two halves. Approximately 10% of the Kenyan coffee production consists of PB beans. And while these types can be very interesting, usually the AA coffee is considered to be one of the best and finest world coffees.

When I opened this coffee, I instantly smelled the blueberry aroma. This reminded me the aroma of one of the first 100% arabica coffees that I bought in my life. I remember that it was from Africa, but really can’t decide if it was Kenyan or Ethiopian. The most vivid memory from this coffee was it’s different fruitful aroma and the Kenya Nyeri Gatugi AB reminded me this exact coffee back in time. Other than blueberry taste, this coffee will give you fruit jam and brown sugar notes. And as the roast level is medium this time, it brings more intensive taste in the espresso shot.

In the mouth, this coffee is very complex and balanced, a bit sourish, but sweet in the aftertaste. I think the sourness may come from improper extraction, which is a result of maybe not very suitable grind size. This is really a concern only for very trained coffee experts, but in the home coffee brewing is nothing to worry about. The difference is really not that big, so I am happy with the results I’m getting from this pre-ground coffee. Maybe my next step in coffee brewing “evolution” should really be buying a home grinder of relatively good quality? 🤔

Now, it’s time to feed the children. Here we have a healthy breakfast consisting of yogurt, rolled oat flakes, chia seeds and mashed banana for the smaller boy. The older one receives his banana chopped into cubes 😁

So, have a really nice weekend and take care!
Enjoy your cup of coffee with the people that make you happy.
See you!