Kenya Nyeri Ndiaini-Kiagundo WP Decaf
Kenya Nyeri Ndiaini-Kiagundo WP Decaf
Farm Description
I am starting to get pretty excited about decafs. Yes, it is true, and there's a good reason. We have been able to send our own coffees to the decaffeination plant lately, something we could not do before because the minimum lot size is so large. But by teaming up with another roaster, we are able to have total control of the green coffee selected for the decaffeination process, and the results have been stunning. We have our Guatemala La Maravilla and Ethiopia Moredocofe Sidamo from Swiss Water Process in Canada. And now we have what amounts to the crown jewel of the pack, a mix of two Kenya AA auction lots from Nyeri area, fantastic coffees in their own right, that we sent to the water process decaf plant in Mexico, and the result is the best decaf coffee I have tasted in recent memory. It is brilliant! I needed to use 2 lots to form the minimum bag amount, but this worked out well. The Kiagundo was a bright and citrusy coffee, the Ndia-ini had fruit, body, depth. Together they were better than their parts, and the decaf cup I have before me speaks to that.
Cupping Notes
The dry fragrance is intensely sweet, caramely, and delightfully fruited with red apple, peach and plum. The wet aromatics bring out different fruits and berries: pineapple, dry plum, strawberry. The cup coalesces the aromatic qualities. It's very sweet, bright, fruited, light-bodied, and vibrant. Plum and strawberry are the dominant fruits initially, with ripe, sweet pineapple in the finish. There is a cinnamon accent, turning to clove at Full City roast. The light body rather suits the effervescent nature of the cup. The finish has a nice apple-like tartness, and caramel-molasses lingering flavors, the later being the only hint I get from this coffee that it is a decaf at all. A 90 point decaf? Some may think it's a stretch, but put this on the table next to a really nice, clean, balanced decaf you give 85 points, and tell me this is not a 90! Aromatically, and in terms of sweetness and clean fruited notes, it's an amazing cup. Unless, of course, you don't like Kenya coffees at all ...because this cups so well side by side with its non-decaf Kenya counterparts.
Score
Lot Size
Roast Recommendations
City to Full City+. I was amazed at how well the sweetness and fruit flavors are present throughout the medium roast range. Of course, like all decafs, judging roast by color is difficult, so listen and watch the roast carefully.Processing
Varietal
Grade & Appearance
Packaging
Comments
#1 Sampled this.
We received a sample of this in our most recent order and decided to give it a go. As it happened we were fishing for a 2nd decaf to add to our lineup here shortly (as the demand for high quality decaf has risen) and the timing could not have been better.
Anyhow, not wanting to taint our thoughts, we opted not to read this page until after we had taken notes on our cups. The first thing worth noting is the aroma, it pops of a bright citrus. When smelling the cup after its brewing, the sweetness that emerges from this coffee starts to tickle your tongue. The cup itself tasted heavily of a variety of citrus as well, and although somewhat sweet and sour on the tongue (it was cupped after resting 3 hours) it was very clean. Two of our cuppers did not know this was a decaf, and were amazed when told that it was. The aftertaste is that of a sweet molasses, but I associated it with a lighter molasses as opposed to heavy thick molasses (think light vs dark brown sugar but without so much sucrose). Overall this decaf was exceptional, and I hope soon to add it to my lineup!
#2 I agree - sweet, citrus. Can be hard to roast
... well, I guess the fact it can be hard to roast is true with any decaf. They just behave so differently. An interesting aside: we put together this lot from 2 coffees and sent to for decaffienation. we sold some of it to four barrel coffee which helped us out, because the minimum to send a decaf is a huge number of bags. They have been having a little trouble roasting it in their 15k Probat - I think they do smaller batches when the roaster is at full heat. In our 12k we do fairly full batches early on in the session, so the drum is not too hot. Our roasts are more citrusy, and the surface color matches the interior fairly well. They are getting very dark surface color, but when you grind it and hold them side by side, the interior is much lighter. I think there's has a darker roast taste, a syrupy cup, but I prefer our roasts, which are more like your characterization. By the way, in the recent New York Times decaf article, that is our coffee they discuss. Jeremy told them it was from us, but I guess it sounded better to write "he found this coffee in Nyeri." Not true, oh well. The other odd thing is their panel of non-experts preferred Starbucks and Peets decaf! Well, it appears the Peets tied with the Kenya. I think this has to do with the fact that the 2 big brand ones were Indonesias with darker roasts, and lay people associate that with quality. I don't think they could be ready for a decaf like this Kenya. We have 3 new custom decaf lots in the works, Including a Sumatra, Brazil and Ethiopia lots we sent down. Kenya is NOT going to be possible to decaf this year due to incredibly high Kenya auction prices. It would end up being around $6/Lb to sell! -Tom
#3 supra-sweet
I really am so blown away by how sweet this cup is whenever I put it on the table!