full bodied brew that packs in notes of apple cider, dried fig, caramelized sweetness, pancake syrup, aromatic herbals, and rustic pipe tobacco.
Zambia is not a coffee growing country we see many samples from. There is plenty of coffee being exported from the region, but their coffee-growing history is much younger than those that surround them. The first coffee was planted in Zambia in the 1950s, however, it wasn’t until the last few decades that it became a major contributor to Zambia’s agri-business sector.
Kateshi is one of a cluster of coffee estates are very close to Kasama town, in Zambia’s Northern Province. Estates and “plantations” make up the bulk of coffees that are exported from Zambia. Altitude at Kateshi ranges from 1300 to 1500 meters above sea level. This lot is also a mix of AAA and AA, which refers to screen sizes, 15 – 19 1/64ths of an inch in this case. There are a lot of Catimor hybrid types grown in the region for disease resistance, which also happen to produce seeds that are quite large and would lend to the AAA grade (the largest grade).
This lot from Kateshi Estate has smells of cooked fruit, a fresh green herbal note, and a rustic sweetness of palm. Though not as fruit forward as the dry process lot from Kateshi we had a while back, this particular lot is a couple notches fruitier than most washed coffees. The flavor profile has notes of apple cider, and dried black fig. Caramelized sweetness comes up as the coffee cools off a bit, along with a note of pancake syrup, and aromatic herbals and pipe tobacco underscore some of the rustic elements in the cup.
- Origin: Zambia
- Region: Kasama
- Altitude: 1300-1500m
- Cultivar: Catimor
- Grade: AAA and AA
- Processing: Wet Process (Washed)
- Drying: Patio Sun-Dried