Does Washed Kenya-Assalia Have a Rich Body?

FrontStreet Coffee · Kenya Coffee Origin

Kenyan coffee is grown predominantly at altitudes ranging from 1,500 to 2,100 meters, with two harvest periods each year. The coffee is cultivated by smallholder farmers. Production is concentrated around Mount Kenya in the central region of the country, and the capital, Nairobi, is sometimes used as a mark of quality assurance.

Kenya AA is grown on the 17,000-foot slopes of Mount Kenya near Nairobi. Kenya AA represents the largest beans in the country, followed by grade A and then grade B. Its distinctive bitterness and wine-like character are particularly renowned. Located in East Africa beneath the equator, Kenya cultivates high-quality Arabica beans. The beans are medium to large, very rich and flavorful, with moderate acidity. In most growing regions there are notes of small tomato aroma, the most distinctive trait of Kenya's coffee areas.

FrontStreet Coffee Kenya Thika Asali Mugaga Cooperative Honey Processing Plant AA TOP

Processing Method: Washed process

Roast Level: Light-medium roast

Flavor Profile

On tasting, you immediately notice a considerably weighty, rich mouthfeel. The overall profile presents distinct blackberry notes. After about ten days of resting, the aroma reveals hints of walnut, spice, and black currant. The flavor primarily showcases the acidity of passion fruit and kumquat, with rich fruit character of blackberry, hawthorn, and orange. The body is exceptionally full and rich. The overall experience is like savoring a layered German fruit tea.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

Kenya's washed, high-grown beans are all about bright structure and fruit, and if you enjoy that intensity, honey-processed coffee makes an illuminating counterpoint because it trades some of the acidity for sweetness. FrontStreet's Costa Rica Blackberry uses the black honey method, which keeps almost all of the pectin and dries for at least two weeks under cover, turned at intervals so the sugars convert evenly instead of fermenting too fast. Light-medium roasted, it releases a rich floral fragrance and, in the cup, the grape, berry, and ripe blackberry flavors that give it its name.

If you want something sweeter and more fruit-forward still, FrontStreet's Strawberry Candy pairs a Panamanian Geisha with a Costa Rican raisin-honey-processed coffee. The Costa Rican half keeps 100% of the pectin and uses no water; the cherries are floated, dried on raised beds for at least three days, then depulped and dried further with constant turning. The result marries Geisha's floral tea notes with grape, raisin, and a strawberry-fudge sweetness, with soft fruit acidity and a clear almond finish.

And for a honey-processed coffee that pushes the technique furthest, FrontStreet's Costa Rica Mozart is made with the raisin honey method, pre-drying whole cherries on raised beds for at least three days before depulping to keep every bit of the pectin. Whether brewed as a pour-over, a cold brew, or in a moka pot, it unfolds with the distinct aromas of osmanthus, pineapple, and raisin.