Kenya Ichamama AA

Join us in reliving the thrill of winning Roaster of the Year with one of the coffees that made it possible. This lot from Ichamama has multiple different gradings but basically the grading is only based on size, which can be an indicator of potential quality but can also be dispirate across regions and varieties. This Ichamama AA (AA outturn - meaning it's the largest bean separation from a particular coffee process batch.) is pretty superb on all accounts, and cupping it was a journey. It features mango and pink starburst up front with ruby red grapefruit juice. Complemented with some nicely Kenyan tomato compote notes and cooling into a smooth pistachio gelato.

This coffee is from the Ichamama Factory, a washing station near Karima Hill in Nyeri. The station was named after the Ichamama river which flows near enough to the station to be the source of water for processing coffee. Ichamama is one of 19 washing stations that make up the Othaya Farmer's Coopertive Society, a coop-run organization, one of the older ones I might add. Othaya started in the mid-1950s, ballooning from 250 original members to 15,000 strong today. Karima is one of the oldest of the group, erected in 1964, and currently with nearly 1,000 farmer members (and is one of the most productive of the 19). The station sits at about 1750 meters above sea level, and coffee is grown in the higher altitude areas surrounding it. When comparing with the other upper tier grades Peaberry, AA, and AB it's not always indicative of higher or lower quality, though the cash premium spread generally favors the AA slightly more than AB or PB.