Origin of the Month
Our monthly coffee selections!
Learn about our monthly coffee selections! Every 30 days we bring in a new exotic origin and a new premium origin every quarter.
Origin of the Month April 2025
tanzania Organic Kilimanjaro AA
Coffee farmers in Tanzania often form alliances or cooperatives designed to help all the farmers have a better life. These organizations are called Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies (AMCOS). Small holder farmers (less than 5 acres) from four of these AMCOS along the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro contributed to this lot.
Mt. Kilimanjaro is a dormant volcano, is Africa’s highest mountain, and believe it or not, is the highest free-standing mountain above sea level in the world. The soil here is so rich and the climate so perfect for coffee trees that the farmers have no need to use non-organic fertilizers or products. The farmers use sustainable farming practices and agricultural strategies. The focus is on indigenous methods as this preserves the cultural aspects of coffee farming that Tanzania has historically produced.
The farmers in these AMCOS hand pick the ripe cherries and deliver them to a Coffee Processing Unit, where they are recorded for traceability. The cherries are de-pulped the day they are harvested and the beans ferment in water tanks for 72 hours. The beans are washed and sorted by density through channels with wooden shunts that control the flow. As the beans
travel through the channels, the lighter beans float. Workers remove the floaters from the lot. The processed coffee beans are then laid out on raised beds for drying for up to 14 days.
Dawn and I are really liking this coffee. It is smooth with a lighter body and bright acidity that gives it a clean finish. This coffee achieved a cup score of 84.25.
While enjoying this coffee you
may detect notes of Coca Powder, Dried Plum, Brown Sugar, Lemon Lime, and Black Tea. A Pairing Guide is available!
Origin of the Quarter Q1 2025
Kenya ab lenana plus
Kenya shares a border with Ethiopia, where coffee was first discovered by Kaldi and his goats sometime around the year 850. One might think that coffee trees would be native to Kenya as well. That is not the case though. Interestingly, it was French missionaries who brought coffee trees to Kenya in 1893, more than a century after Kaldi made his world changing discovery.
Kenyan coffees have long been held in high regard for their quality and consistency. Meticulous farming on more than 600,000 smallholder farms, excellent management at washing stations, and the organization of Farmer Cooperative Societies (FCS), all contribute to Kenyan coffee excellence.
This AB Lenana Plus comes to us through FCS’s in the Kenyan counties of Murang’a, Kiambu, and Kirinyaga. It has won awards as both a light roast and a dark roast. We went with the lighter roast to bring out as much of the flavors as possible. This coffee is named after Point Lenana, one of the peaks of Mt. Kenya. This lot consists of SL-28, SL-34, and Ruiri-11 cultivars grown by local producers. Mt. Kenya is an extinct volcano and as such, the soil is deep red and black and rich in organic matter.
Perfect soil and high elevations (4900 to 6200 feet above sea level), combine wonderfully to produce coffees of superior quality.
This is a washed process coffee. Workers hand pick ripe cherries in the morning and take them to wet-mills, where they are spread on patios for sorting. At the wet-mills, the de-pulpers use clean
water to remove the outer fruit of the cherries, after which, the beans sink into fermentation tanks where they stay overnight while the mucilage breaks down.
The following day, managers check the tanks and decide to continue processing based on how the beans “feel”. The beans are then sorted by density and left to sun-dry in raised beds until they reach a moisture level of 10-12%.
Kenyan coffees are renowned world-wide for bold, fruity flavors and this is one you simply cannot miss. It is medium-bodied, full of flavor and very satisfying and earned a cup-score of 86. While
savoring a cup, you may detect hints of dark chocolate, caramel, citrus and black currant.