Kenya Nyeri Kamoini Peaberry

Kamoini is one of several coffees we picked up from Othaya Farmer's Cooperative Society (FCS), an FCS that includes an impressive amount of wet mills, 18 in all, dating back to the late 1950s. Kamoini Factory sits at 1825 meters above sea level, right along the Ichamama River, which is fed from the Karima forest above. "Factories" are essentially small washing stations aligned with a particular "society" in Kenya, what we would call a "cooperative". We return to the societies who seem to regularly produce some of the best Kenya coffees, and each year we come across societies that are new to us as well. Being one of the older Kenya FCS, we are well aware of the quality coming out of Othaya, and have had the good fortune to buy a few stellar lots the past two years. It was purchased direct, not through the Kenya auction system, so we could avoid the risk of losing it. To do this we pay a price that is higher than what the top auction bid might be, but it means we get the exact lot we want. This is the peaberry outturn, and "outturn" being the different bean size separations they achieve from each lot separation. In general, there is AA, AB, and Peaberry (or "PB). The first two are related to the size of the regular flat beans, the largest being AA, and AB slightly smaller. They then separate the 5% or so peaberries, a natural mutation that occurs on every coffee tree where one of the two beans inside the coffee cherry essentially dies, and the other receives all the nutrition, naturally taking on a small circular shape (no wonder in Latin America they are referred to as "caracol" because of their resemblance to tiny snails!).