Kenya AA Giakanja Coop Coffee Mill

It look me some time to get to like Kenya coffees. The altitude and climate these coffees are grown at can produce some ferocious acidity in coffee. Some people like this, and some people don't. Originally, I didn't.

The issue is the difference between acidity and sourness. When the term "acidity" is used when referring to coffee, it is the slight puckering sensation and crispness to the cup that actually makes the coffee very refreshing and drinkable. However, when not done correctly (or under-roasted), this can turn into a grassy, sour flavor that can make your whole body shudder. Back in the day I roasted a lot of coffee that tasted like that and it really turned me off.

Now that I am pretty devoted to light roasted coffee. I find that when done correctly, the brightness of Kenya coffees comes with a sweetness and complexity that you will find in few other places. Now I can't get enough of the stuff.

This particular coffee was roasted quite lightly the first time around, back in March of this year:



My notes were as follows:
3/23/08: "Intense stuff. Very powerful flowery aroma - roses! Interesting bitterness to go with it. Perhaps could have ended the roast a tad sooner"

3/24/08: "This aroma is so weird - I have never smelled anything like it in a coffee. In your face rose bush aroma. Unique, but I don't care for it"

I tell you, I have had weird fruity aromas, intense florals, nuts, you name it. But this rose aroma was so strong it turned my stomach.

With a half pound left, I decided to pawn this coffee off on my co-workers. I decided to roast it much darker to see if I could drive off the weird aroma. The profile this time is as follows (yellow marks the differences from the previous):


This time the coffee was roasted into second crack. With this treatment, the odd rose aroma was gone, and I was left with a very nice, pungent, and rustic cup. Not a coffee I would rush to buy again, but certainly very drinkable. It never ceases to amaze me how the same coffee roasted different ways can be so different in the cup.