Kenya Mara Estate Anaerobic Natural

Description

Only one batch left - don't miss your chance!This is definitely a departure from the classic Kenya cup, and I'm excited to see these interesting processes coming in! This experimental lot was continuously harvested from post Fly Crop cherries every few days as they ripened. Previously, these cherries have been let go to waste.What's in the Cup? New profile: reduced / removed ferment from the cup. Notes of apple and cherry in the cup... maybe a little currant at higher extraction. A very smooth and subtle cup with malic acidity. Much more pleasant than the maximum funk from before.Will it spro? I expect mellow Turbos, but it needs a little more rest.Recommended Minimum Rest: 2 weeksRoast Color: 129.2 (higher is lighter)SL-28, Batian, and Ruiru 11 varietals grown on the Mara Coffee Estate in Narok County. Anaerobic Natural process, dried on raised beds, 1700-1900 masl.Sold in 300 g bags.Brewmaster J's Notes & TipsS&W Mara Estate Field Blend Anaerobic Natural Kenya this was a tough one as it isn’t exactly the type of coffee I normally brew and also is a fairly unique process/origin combination which seems to behave a bit differently that the others I’ve had.  It was sensitive to over extraction, so my brews were generally pulled back quite a bit from my normal parameters.  In the end I got very intense cups of orange hi-chew, currant, blackberry syrup, and spices.  The funk warning on this is accurate, even though I started the bag around 5wks off roast.  My first brew was setup for lower extraction and still came out way over where I wanted it.  From there it was a matter of finding how far back I had to pull it.  My best cups came from low temp, coarse grind, low agitation recipes which suppressed that spice note and funk enough to let the other notes come through. Overall, I get why people will like this even though it’s not for me.  Grind 5.0 ZP6Temp 88CBrewer V60-01 + Gabi BRecipe 3 pour 15g/240g recipe 45/100/95 with a 30s bloom, bloom pour directly into the bed, pour 2-3 use the Gabi B and pour very slowly like 3g/sBonus Recipe: Iced Soupicano - espresso/soup tends to be very setup dependent so take this as more of a starting point than an exact recipe. Like the pour over recipe, start at coarser grind, lower temp. Grind 1.4.0 XProTemp 88CBrewer OXO Rapid BrewerRecipe 15g/65g coffee/water, dilute with ice/water out to 160gMore about the producer:Narok county runs along Kenya’s southern border with Tanzania, whereupon the Masai Mara turns into the enormous Serengeti National Park.  It’s hard to imagine coffee and expansive savannahs co-habiting in the same environment, but in the case of Mara Estate, it is working well. And in almost every way, this anaerobic natural lot from Mara Estate is the total opposite of what most people expect from Kenya coffees. Mara Estate is very young, established only in 2019. The farm is planted almost entirely with Batian, a government-developed cultivar bred for a combination of disease resistance and quality that, while widespread, is rarely grown on its own. Mara is a large estate, with minimal shade, planted near the town of Lolgorien, and harvest during Kenya’s fly crop months of May, June, and July. So far, the farm is processing almost entirely naturals, which are barrel-fermented for 4 days prior to drying on raised beds, to allow the fruit to sweeten and partially ferment before drying. Like we said, different from conventional Kenyas in almost every way. Mara’s location in Narok makes it a uniquely large employer for surrounding families, and a unique source of unconventional coffees from Kenya that help expand our expectations. Narok does have smallholder coffee, and many consider it to have ideal conditions for producing high quality, because of the elevation, its relative flatness, and dry climate. Unconventionally processed lots like this one help draw awareness to the area.