About our Blue Label Roasting Project...

We do a fair amount of production roasting, of course - to the tune of 3000 pounds or so a week - to service our stores and our dedicated wholesale and delivery clients. We roast every day of the week, every week of the year, with very few exceptions. One of the things about production roasting is that, what with having to purchase larger contracts on green bean and meet production deadlines and all, it doesn't allow much time to stop and smell the roses, and we were missing that. So we went out and bought a couple of very cool semi-commercial trial roasters that roast down to 100 grams of coffee at a time, and peak out at a mere 500 grams or so, and roast some more or less off-the-beaten-path coffees that we buy at consumer level places like Sweet Marias and Coffee Shrub, as well as our more traditional brokers. We get to bring in coffees that we wouldn't really buy in larger quantities, and we get to relax a bit, roasting like we don't care about anything else. The results are delicious too. Roasting at this level results in some pretty spectacular coffees that simply don't come out of larger operations. So yeah. It all works out.

Please allow 5 business days for shipment on Blue Label coffees, as we roast them less frequently, in micro batches, and they take considerably more time and effort to do as a consequence.

About this Nyeri Coffee

Kenya has grown coffee since the turn of the 19th century, the crop having been introduced by British missionaries, and initially grown in the areas immediately surrounding Nairobi. The Kenya coffee grading and auction system is without peer in the coffee world. It is a highly transparent and efficient mechanism, with coffee being meticulously sorted and graded for screen size, defect count and other characteristics that affect cup quality or market price. All coffee is sold through the Kenya Coffee Exchange, at weekly auctions that can be fiercely competitive, driving prices up to levels well higher than most commodity coffee. Organic certification (and for that matter, any other external certifications) is nonexistent, the coffees selling strictly on the merits of cup quality, and demand for such. We highly approve.

This Othaya AB is a very nice example of what great Nyeri coffees can be. Lots of bright and not-so-bright citrus fruit, and that classic Kenya wineyness in the finish. There's some plum and stone fruit sugariness, too. If you've ever had a great Kenya, this one won't disappoint.

Producer: Othaya Farmers' Cooperative

Country: Kenya

Region: Nyeri

Cultivar: SL-28, SL-34, Ruiru 11

Process: Washed

Elevation: 4500-6000 feet

Tasting Notes: Blackcurrant, Meyer Lemon, Tamarind