Kenya Kamwangi AA

Where in the world?

REGION

Kirinyaga County, Central Highlands

FARM

New Ngariama Farmers Cooperative Society

ALTITUDE

1600 – 2000 MASL

VARIETY

Baitan, Ruiru 11, SL28

PROCESS

Washed

TASTING NOTES

Blackcurrant Jam, Grapefruit, Cola

What’s the story?

There are few coffees that announce themselves quite like a good Kenyan, and this Kamwangi AA is a great example. It’s bright and structured, packed with fruit, but with enough sweetness and depth to keep the cup balanced and comforting.

As espresso, there is that deep jammy blackcurrant jam, balanced with the grapefruit acidity, making it both clean and sticky sweet, a truly classic Kenyan profile. Those flavours are also evident in the filter, with the soft vanilla more evident, and that lingering cola like orange and caramel slightly herbal note on the finish.

Through milk, this coffee is cassis and blackcurrant jam, with a soft hit of vanilla an. It’s sweet, fruity and properly moreish, the sort of coffee that makes a flat white feel like a bit of a treat.

Our Kieron summed it up succincty “Like someone improved the quality of jam in a Jammie Dodger”

Where it comes from

Kamwangi Coffee Factory sits in Kirinyaga County, on the slopes of Mount Kenya. It is one of three washing stations run by the New Ngariama Farmers Cooperative Society, a farmer-owned organisation that has been working in the area since 1997.

The cooperative brings together thousands of smallholder farmers, giving them the infrastructure to process their cherries and get them to market. Coffee is grown alongside other crops such as maize, beans and potatoes, making it part of a broader farming system and an important source of household income.

What we particularly like about New Ngariama is that the focus on quality isn’t just something that happens at the washing station. Farmers are encouraged and supported to improve how they grow, pick and deliver their coffee, while payment is linked to quality. Better cherries mean better grades, and better grades mean better returns for the farmers.

That creates a pretty simple but important relationship: take care of the coffee, and the coffee can take care of you.

A lot of the character in a Kenyan coffee is built before it ever reaches the roaster. At Kamwangi, cherries are carefully sorted before processing, with farmers encouraged to deliver ripe, clean fruit. At the factory, the coffee goes through further sorting and density grading, removing lower-density coffees and helping keep the final lots clean and consistent.

The coffee is then fully washed and slowly dried on raised African drying beds. It’s this attention to detail at every stage,  from the cherry on the tree to the parchment on the drying bed that helps Kamwangi produce the kind of vibrant, sweet coffees the cooperative has become known for.

And there’s a wider environmental side to that work too. The cooperative has invested in wastewater management at its factories and encourages sustainable farming practices, including tree planting and the use of shade and other crops around the coffee.

So while the end result is a deliciously jammy, sweet cup, there’s quite a lot behind it: smallholder farmers, a cooperative that has an incentive to produce quality, and a washing station that takes that quality seriously.

ESPRESSO: Conti Ace

Dose: 18g
Yield: 45g
Time: 28 seconds

FILTER: Coming Soon

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