Taste
What Does Malic Acid Taste Like in Coffee?
Citric acid flashes and fades. Malic acid, the slower acid altitude builds into high-grown lots like Kenya Kiambu, coats the tongue and lingers for up to thirty seconds.
Learn
Notes from the roastery: what we buy, how we roast it, and what we have learned building coffee programs on the Gulf Coast.
Tagged “kenya” · see all of Learn
Origins
How Is Green Coffee Imported Into the United States?
How a hundred-pound lot of green coffee actually clears US Customs and FDA prior notice before it reaches a small roaster, and what that process costs.
Origins
Is Robusta a Different Species of Coffee?
Robusta is not a variety of arabica. It is Coffea canephora, a separate species with half the chromosomes and a different way of making seed, and it is also one of ara...
Origins
What Is a Coffee Varietal?
A varietal is the kind of coffee plant the seed came from. The harder question is what that name is standing in for, because the same line on a bag can hold a named se...
Origins
What Is Mucilage in Coffee?
Mucilage is the coffee cherry's sticky inner layer, and it is 84 percent water over a pectin gel rather than the sugar coating everyone describes. What it is made of, ...
Origins
Why Is High-Altitude Coffee Better?
Growing higher raises the sugar in a coffee seed by a large, measurable amount. Elevation is standing in for temperature, and the grade on the bag certifies the farm r...
Taste
What Is Malic Acid in Coffee?
Malic acid is really in the cup, and measured against its own detection threshold there is usually too little of it to pick out. Where it comes from, why it got the ap...
Origins
What Is Kenyan Coffee?
Kenya's grading letters measure the bean, not the cup. Here is how the country description holds up against one bag we actually bought, published notes and all.
Roasting
What Is Light Roast Coffee?
A light roast comes off the roaster just after first crack, and it is not stronger: a 2024 study measured 134 to 165 mg of caffeine at every roast level.
Origins
Kenya Nyeri Kamoini: Bright Kenyan Coffee with Peach Notes
Nyeri Kamoini is a washed Kenyan from SL-28, SL-34 and Ruiru 11 smallholders. Peach and apricot, with 20 g to 300 ml as a starting pour over recipe.
Origins
The Complete Guide to Kenya Nyeri Ndaroini Coffee
Kenya Nyeri Ndaroini is a washed lot of SL-28, SL-34, Ruiru-11 and Batian: spiced sugar, red berry, ginger. Pour over at 1:16 with a 40 second bloom.
