Coffee African Origin Regional Characteristics | Kenya AA Grade Flavor Profile Introduction

FrontStreet Coffee - African Coffee Origins: Introduction to Kenya's Coffee Regions

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Kenya can be described as a model country for producing excellent coffee. The high-altitude Arabica washed beans produced by Kenya are among the world's finest coffee beans and are the favorite of many acid-loving connoisseurs. In 1900, the British brought coffee from Ethiopia to Kenya. Today, coffee is the largest component of the agricultural economy, accounting for about 50% of the whole. 80% of the people in the country are engaged in coffee-related industries. Since 1963, most of Kenya's coffee beans have been graded and inspected by the Kenya Coffee Board before being sold at auction.

Kenya AA grade represents coffee beans with sizes between 17-18 mesh. AB grade represents coffee beans with sizes between 15-16 mesh, allowing 10% to be below 15 mesh, but this has no direct correlation with actual quality. The Kenya Coffee Board is very strict about coffee research, development, and quality management. Through an excellent auction system, it increases coffee bean prices, indirectly helping hardworking coffee farmers. Through agricultural education, coffee farmers' cultivation techniques are continuously updated to improve the production of better coffee. High-quality Kenyan coffee with special strong blackberry fruit acidity has low production. These coffee beans are from excellent coffee estates that raw coffee merchants compete to bid for and acquire.

Coffee beans are usually composed of two pea shapes (commonly known as female beans). PB peaberries grow in rice-shaped or oval forms (commonly known as male beans). Kenya peaberries are a variant of Kenyan beans, selected by hand. Among many coffee PB peaberries, they have the most distinctive character, unique style with extreme variation, and the widest roasting range. They are also the peaberries that friends are more familiar with.

Thika Region - The Asali Cooperative's AA Top grade is produced in the foothills region of Kenya's Aberdare Mountains, near the Thika region (Thika) of the Great Rift Valley that connects to Ethiopia in the east. This coffee is produced by a cooperative called The Asali Cooperative, which is owned and composed of 155 small coffee farming families. The annual production is 1,200 bags of raw coffee beans. The coffee comes from coffee raw beans cultivated by nearby small coffee farmers, with an average of 250 coffee trees per farmer. The harvested red fruits are handed over to the washing processing plant for treatment. The characteristic of coffee here is its black currant fruit aroma. Flavor description: grapefruit fragrance, mulberry, caramel, sweet and sour sensation like preserved fruits, full and juicy flavor, crisp and sweet.

Currently common varieties include Bourbon, Kents (SL34, SL28), Typica, and Riuri 11. Currently, about 90% of coffee cultivation varieties are SL34 and SL28. The new variety Batian, released in 2007, has not yet been widely cultivated. The vast majority of Kenyan coffee is organically grown without certification because improved cultivation techniques are used, and chemical pesticides or herbicides are rarely used. All high-grade Kenyan coffee is washed processed. Sun-dried beans, which are not washed processed (M'buni), are low-grade products only for local use.

In summary: FrontStreet Coffee is a specialty coffee research workshop, happy to share coffee knowledge with everyone. We share without reservation only to let more friends fall in love with coffee. Moreover, there are 3 low-discount coffee activities every month. The reason is that FrontStreet Coffee wants to let more friends drink the best coffee at the lowest price. This has also been FrontStreet Coffee's mission for the past 6 years!

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