I’m back.

Still loving our Yirgacheffe. Almost a year since it was harvested and it’s still holding on to its incredible flavor… Kenya’s keeping it real as well.

One of the things I love about the coffees from these two producing countries is that they are two of the most exciting and recognizable yet wholly unique from each other.

Kenyan beans, at least the good ones, originate from cultivars of coffea arabica developed in laboratories and bear aliases like “sl28 ” and “ruiru 11.” Larger and rounder than their distant relatives in Ethiopia like the smallish longberry typica

Photo: Tom Owen, Sweet Maria's Coffee

varietal typically grown in the regions of Yirgacheffe & Sidamo
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Kenyan coffees distinctive flavor characteristics usually include a wine-like acidity, red currant or grapefruit flavors, and hints of spices like clove. Ethiopian coffees, particularly the fully washed typicas from Yirgacheffe tend towards more lemon-berry tea-like flavors, usually the best with especially fragrant floral notes. These beans, from the same region in the world from whence the coffee plant first grew in the wild, maintain elements of the coffee fruit flavor so innate to the origin of all coffees, representing an au natural counterpart to its synthetic Kenyan cousin. Yet they both produce the most coveted coffees in the world.