Beans: Kenya Kangunu
Roaster: Coffee Kobo Higuchi
Roasting degree: Medium dark
Area of production: Murang'a, 140km NW of Nairobi, Kenya
Kangunu coffee Factory
Grade: N/A
Screen: N/A
Altitude: ranges around ：1,750m
Defects: N/A
Processing: Washed
Variety: Bourbon
Yr of cultivation: 2011
UTZ CERTIFIED
【Impression】
Medium to light, full body, lemony and pink grapefruits citrus aroma, fruity acidity, blackberry and cranberry, combined with dark chocolate like sweetness bottomed with pomegranate syrup, light clear bitterness, complex structure bitterness cored as long lasting aftertaste with tangy acidity. Vivid, lively flavor and aroma with complex flavor.
Unlike the most Kenyan coffee, this Kangunu lot leaves strong citrus impression of pink grapefruits with juicy sweetness rather than earthy spices.
A package From Coffee Kobo Higuchi has arrived! "Kobo" means a small factory like "an atelier", in Italian "bottega", with metaphor of craftsmanship. Certainly, the roaster, Mr. Sehichi Higuchi, refers himself as "a craft-man".
The package contains "Trial set", 300g of freshly roasted coffee beans, three different single origin 100g each with the certification such as Rain forest Alliance, Fair-trade label and so on. How surprising it is to know this costs only 1,000 JPY!
This time, it includes: Kenya Kangunu, El Salvador Las Nubes, and The Agricultural Cooperative Chojzunil, Guatemala.
The specialty coffee boom has aroused public interests in coffee cultivation process, including estates and mills, and has changed the coffee market structure. Now, single origins and estate/mill bland coffees become highly accessible with wider selection with sometimes special price like this. Flavor of coffee relies on both quality of green beans and roasting techniques, so these type of "trial package" reduce barriers to taste arts of new coffee roasters. Reviews will follow as they are tasted and now wish these coffee beans have lively tastes as their aroma is.
Beans: Guatemala
Roaster: Rokuyosha
Roasting Degree: Medium
【Impression】
Dark to medium dark, smooth body, nutty sweetness, roasted black soy beans sweet & bitter aroma, sweetness of Hazel nuts with a tip of cacao nibs bitterness, mellow, mature, well-balanced, a thin layer of light bitterness mixed with a tint, mild acidity of Kumquat, thick sweetness of Dutch black cocoa in core, tangy bitterness followed by a tip of citric acidity as a long lasting aftertaste.
Good combination with almond milk creamer to enhance nutty flavor. Combination with light texture of sweets, like Pâte feuilletée, Palmiers, may create wonderful tea break.
Sourness enhanced once a cup gets cold.
【Note】
Typical Guatemalan flavor: fruity, aroma-full, well-balanced, mellow, light acidity cored with sweetness and average flavor balance. This may fit with water brew methods to extract full flavor, "essence", of the beans.
【Roasting】
Due to roasting volume, light charcoal like bitterness detected when water temperature is high. It seems that high temperature enhance bitterness and diminish Sweetness of beans. Although it's changing, average size of roasting machine in Japan is smaller compared with US. As it said, the highest quality coffee beans has been shipped to this island country so that roasting technique is developed in a aspect of "HOW TO educe flavor of beans". The smaller size roasting machines has higher ability to manage lighter degree roasting, which somehow fits to the country of space limitation.
