Kenya Musilili

The Musilili Coffee Farmer Co-operative in the Nairobi growing district of Kenya is a group of pro-active farmers who know good coffee. They are partially responsible for the recent overhaul in Kenya that allows buyers transparency in knowing who grew the coffee, and providing financial motivation to farmers to produce better coffees because they now get paid higher prices when their particular coffees sell for higher prices at the government auction. In addition to questioning the laws on coffee transactions in Kenya, the Musilili co-op is active in promoting fair labor standards, organic farming, and high quality. For example, this coffee was packed in a Grain-Pro bag inside a burlap bag, which is not a practice that is wide-spread in Kenya yet, but certainly one that helps preserve the freshness and quality of the crop on its journey to the USA.

This particular lot of large AA sized beans is best roasted just past City roast, but before it hits Full City. In too light of roasts, you get more tartness, and if you are a couple degrees too dark you get less juiciness. But right at the sweet spot you will taste a coffee that starts with apricot jam, turns into juicy sweet peach, with a sweet-bread quality, like an apricot muffin. The ending gives you a dry peach wine/red wine aftertaste. It has a full body, moderate acidity, and is a startlingly fancy coffee that even the average coffee drinker would feel guilty putting cream and sugar in. The coffee does very well in a french press which smooths it out, highlights the body and peachy notes, and adds to the elegance. It also is very nice as a pour-over which highlights the brighter, sweeter, and fruity side of the coffee.

It has been a few years since I had a nice coffee with apricot tones, and I'm happy to have this in stock for you to try. This is NOT classic Kenya in the "grapefruit, black currant" sense, but it is certainly a demonstration of what you can get out of a carefully grown, sorted, processed Kenya by farmers that know what they are doing. A very nice, memorable, special coffee indeed.