Roasting July 25th ONLY (8oz Bags)

White Label Kenya Othaya Rukira

Tasting Notes: butterscotch, blood orange, butter cookie, mild acidity

Suggested Brewing Method:  French Press, Drip, Moka Pot

The timing of the launch of year’s White Label provides an opportunity to highlight coffee cultivated outside a country’s main crop cycle and discover just how good it can be.

Coffees from Kenya have long been standouts in the specialty coffee world. The unique Kenyan auction system implemented in 1933 firmly linked premium prices with higher quality at a time when most producers considered coffee just another commodity. The result has been a couple of generations of extremely carefully grown and processed coffees and a reputation for excellence.

Recently, careful selection of cultivars and improved processing have allowed the quality of Kenya’s main crop to be replicated in its off-season harvest known as a “fly” crop. Coffee drinkers in the northern hemisphere are now able to enjoy excellent fresh-crop Kenya in the late winter and spring.

Kenya Othaya Rukira is a washed fly-crop coffee that comes to us from family-owned farms organized around the Rukira Factory (wet mill) in Nyeri County at the base of Mt. Kenya. The Othaya Farmers’ Co-operative Society manages the Rukira Factory, which carefully sorts and processes coffee from members who generally cultivate around 250 coffee trees on small plots surrounding the mill.

This fly-crop Othaya Rukira is AB in screen-size, which is a small window providing uniformly sized beans that contribute to very even development in the roast. Its cup character is emblematic of Kenya fly-crop coffees in general, presenting some classic clean Kenya flavors but in a softer, warmer, less acidic package.

Having said that, in the cup Othaya Rukira presents an initial flavor and mild citric quality of blood orange, though its rounder and silkier dominant traits quickly emerge with notes of butterscotch, caramel, and pear.  The body is on the fuller side of a typical Kenya, with a mouthfeel not textured but rather smooth and soft. Toward the finish we perceive the mouth-coating quality and flavor of butter-cookie and an herbal sensation of rosemary or even mint.

Overall, Othaya Rukira is a perfect choice for those who like the refined delicacy of a carefully cultivated washed Kenyan lacking the sometimes bracing, electric acidity often found in coffees from the main harvest.  We hope you take this opportunity to enjoy with us this gentle, clean, sweet, and comforting cup of fly-crop Kenya.

Region: Nyeri

Farm: Othaya Farmers’ Co-operative Society

Elevation: 6000 ft

Variety: SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11, and Batian

Processing: washed, sun-dried on raised beds