The Place… Kenya has a unique place in the coffee world. Its coffee history is like no other, and coffee is traded in Kenya very differently than in any other country. Similarly, there is no mistaking great Kenyan coffee in the cup. The unique characteristics of a fine Kenya are so idiosyncratic that coffee cognoscenti can identify one the moment it is ground.

Thiriku... Each coffee cherry cultivated by the artisan farmers of Thiriku is carefully picked when perfectly ripe, washed, and dried by hand in the legendary foothills of Mt. Kenya. This classically bright, complex lot offers full-bodied notes of citrus, honey, and candied ginger.

The History... Amazingly, even though Kenya is the immediate southern neighbor of Ethiopia, the ancestral homeland of the coffee plant where it grows wild to this day, coffee was only brought to Kenya in the late 1800s. The particular strains of coffee introduced to Kenya, however, were transplanted from the island of Bourbon (now called Reunion) in the Indian Ocean, where Ethiopian coffee plants had mutated into the distinct Bourbon variety. In Kenya, these varieties were referred to as French Mission and Scottish Mission, after the missionaries who brought them to Kenya in hopes of developing a viable cash crop.

The Variety… Over time, through an extensive selection process, Kenya developed its own unique strains of coffee, including the legendary SL-28 variety. SL-28 has an almost mythic reputation in the coffee industry, and may be the most respected coffee varietal in the world.

The System… While Kenya was developing its unique agronomic personality, it also developed a unique coffee trading system. Most coffee farms in Kenya are very small, creating ideal conditions for groups of individual farmers to form an extensive network of cooperatives to market their produce. Most of these lots are bought by exporters who mix them into proprietary blends. However, 3CUPS works closely with the savvy buyers of Counter Culture Coffee who can go directly to the bidders and score pure, uncut auction lots that are the ne plus ultra of the Kenyan coffee experience, and, quite frankly, some of the best coffees available in the world. These lots, which we call Kenya Single Lots because of their singular uncut intensity, are gargantuan in terms of intensity and quality.

The Coffee… How does a great Kenyan Single Lot taste? Well, because of the predominant SL-28 heritage and the country’s unique washing technique, along with high altitudes and iron-rich soils, great Kenyan coffees possess a unique, striking fruitiness. Intense notes of raspberry, blackberry, and lemon are not uncommon, but the quintessential Kenyan fruit characteristic is blackcurrant. This intense fruitiness is frequently accompanied by a deeply savory umami characteristic, which sometimes evokes descriptors of sundried tomatoes or steak. All this leaves the drinker with the impression that he or she has just tasted a great wine; in fact, some coffee tasters are known to describe perfect Kenyans as Grand Crus.