KAMAVINDI SL28 PB

Description

Kamavindi Estate sits at 1638-1750 masl in Embu, on the windward side of Mount Kenya. John Njiru Mbature planted it in 1958, starting with the hundred trees that colonial law then allowed and expanding once the restrictions lifted. His son Peter farms it today with his mother Hellen and his sister Gladwell. They are steadily replanting toward pure SL28, and they share what they learn with the smallholders in the surrounding village of Kibugo. At the end of last year Jackie suggested a slow drying indoor dark room, a way to dry the coffee more gently and hold on to clarity, sweetness and structure. We started that project with the family and this year we went back, looked at the room and carried on. Kamavindi is also where we found what may be the first Geisha ever cultivated in Kenya. This lot is SL28, washed in the Kenyan way, and then sorted down to peaberry. A peaberry is the single round seed that forms when only one of the two seeds in a cherry develops, so this is a selection of the seed itself rather than a different variety or a different process. Only a small share of any harvest comes out that way, and the mill separates them by screen size. Same trees and same washing as our SL28 and SL34 lot. The seed is what sets this one apart. Blackcurrant is the SL28 signature and it leads here, with grapefruit carrying the acidity and rhubarb running tart through the middle. Brown sugar sits underneath and holds it together.