fruit and spice notes like dried plum, date pieces, cinnamon stick, all spice powder, plum tea, tea-like tannic acidity, and some grapefruit bittering that lingers in the long finish.
Gakui is located in the town of Embu, at the base of Mount Kenya, just east of Nyeri. They are part of the Gakundu Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS), which consists of four wet mills in total. The Gakui wet mill (or “factory”) was build in 1996, and sits right around 1800 meters on the slopes of the mountain. These wet mill/factories, are collection stations where members deliver coffee cherry for processing and drying.
There is careful attention to coffee quality all the way through the pulping, washing, and drying stages at the factory, with members sorting out defects by hand at the raised drying tables. A few years back Gakundu FCS purchased a few computers and were able to set them up with internet access, affording members with market data as well as vastly speeding up processing of farmer payments. Other benefits to the collective include access to agro-inputs as well as agronomists to help advise on maximizing production.
The sweetness that this Peaberry lot has to offer shows depth, and the fruit and spice notes seem to pile up as the coffee cools. The dry fragrance of medium roasts have a scent of cooked berry, accented by a note of dried peach. The cup starts off with impressive sweetness, fruited flavors mildly present, “raisin” being the one that immediately came to mind. But as the temperature starts to drop, Gakui’s flavor profile is enlivened with an abundance of dark fruit and spice notes like dried plum, date pieces, cinnamon stick, and all spice powder. The acidic impression has a tea-like tannic aspects to it, pleasantly bittering, and offering some mouth cleansing relief in the aftertaste. A delicious plum tea note comes out as you move through the cup, adding a smooth fruited flavor note to what is already a complex finish.
- Origin: Kenya
- Region: Embu
- Producer: Gakundu Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS)
- Altitude: 1800m
- Cultivars: SL-28, SL-34, Ruiru-11, Batian
- Grade: Peaberry
- Processing: Washed