Kenya this year?

[Lambo]

Does anybody know what the situation is in Kenya this year? I've been missing my faves, although I guess it's been harder for the growers.

[Olings]

I tried some Kenya Kagongo Peaberry the other day. It was wonderful with characteristic Kenyan qualities such as blackberry, but it also had nice acidity and some tropical fruityness to it. I'm not sure as to how the crop has been, but judging from our own Steves (Hasbean) blog this year it's better than ever.


Ola

[kingseven]

The Gethumbwini that a few folks are stocking is excellent this year, tonnes of lovely black fruit and sweetness tempered with a nice fresh acidity. Loving it!

[Steve]

Something thats worrying me is the article below.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200705280074.html

But everything I've tried so far this year is really much improved, if not still a little fresh. In my mind its going to get better, once its not so green.

[mattmills]

Guys interesting debate, with many different angles and views.
What i can say is that this season there has been very little almost no TOP lots. However, ther overall quality has been pretty good with good volume of PLUS qualities. The Estates which tend to produce an earlier crop where of a pretty good quality, but the Co-ops which tend to be higher grown and slightly later did not meet expectations with regards to cup quality.
All in all a funny season.
The last month or so has seen the quality really drop as we are now in the tail end.

With regards to the bigger debate. This season should have been top notch with very good rains providing a solid platform. However, although the volume has been ok, as mentioned the quality has been rather dissapointing. Reasons for this are open to opinion. A couple of options are: 1) The effect of the Ruriu 11 strain, although this is a strong planet the cup is by no mean equal to that of the traditional varieties. 2) Possible impact of the second window, preventing some of these top lots from standing out at auction.

No hard facts here but a couple of thoughts for you to digest.

[lastcoyote]

well all i can say is that the gethumbwini i've just had from 'has bean steve' is wonderful. yummy in my cona vac pot. very creamy and fruity! well worth grabbing while stocks last! makes me want to get my chops round some other kenyans..

[mattmills]

Sorry guys dont get me wrong, there have been some top lots, and the gethumbwini was very good this year and came through quite early.
I was talking more of the crop as a whole, far less tops lots than normal, rather dissapointing

[lukas]

At this point I think it would be wise to remember everyone on TMC how small our speciality coffee market is compared to the regular commercial-quality grade coffee ... thanks for listening.
Actually, I would be very interested in numbers on this ... Matt? You're sitting at the source, don't you?

[mattmills]

Lukas, very good point. You are right the speciality segment as a whole is very small, and the one that we are discussing on here is even smaller. There are numbers that are thrown about all over the place, but the biggest issue is the definiton... what is a speciality coffee. So in reality it is impossible to define and give a percentage of the market.
But just for argument sake, as a world market, we are probably looking at around 2%

For kenya, well it can be argued that anywhere around 20-30% of the crop can be said to be speciality. (although that is open to huge argument)