Karimikui Coffee

Details

Origin - Rungeto, Kirinyaga

Country - Kenya

Altitude - 1,800 MASL

Process - Washed AB

Variety - SL28, SL34, Ruiri 11, Batian

Notes - Blackberry, Fig, Brown Sugar

Origin Story

Our second Kenyan release of the season comes from the Karimikui washing station in Kirinyaga county on the southern slopes of Mount Kenya. Just like the Kiangoi before it, it’s another classic washed Kenyan offering - round and syrupy sweet, with soft florals, reminding us of blackberry, fig and brown sugar.

Karimikui was established in 1966 to serve the neighbouring Githureia, Gituba and Kia Mugumo villages, and has established a reputation for producing some of Kenya’s most consistently high-quality, complex and flavour-dense coffees.

On delivery, the coffee is pulped then left to ferment in parchment overnight. The coffee is then washed and graded into five densities, before being sun-dried on raised beds for 8 to 14 days. At the dry mill the coffee is then sorted again by size, this lot representing the AB separation of beans larger than 6.6mm in diameter.

We selected this coffee at Nordic Approach’s Spring Cupping in Oslo earlier this year. Nordic Approach is a coffee importer based in Norway that has a reputation for importing some of the best Kenyan coffees around. Their Spring Cupping is the first chance to taste fresh crop coffees from Kenya, so we made the journey to Oslo determined to secure some of the season’s best lots. By happy accident, from a blind cupping of around 20 Kenyan coffees, all the coffees we selected were from washing stations operated by Rungeto - Karimikui, Kiangoi and Kii - so they’re clearly onto something!