Overview
This is a double fermented and double washed coffee from Nyeri, Kenya, produced by members of the Mahiga cooperative.
The flavor profile is complex, well-balanced, and very sweet with plenty of citrusy acids. We tasted caramel, tomato, dried cherry, papaya, and plum.
Our roasters found, unsurprisingly, this Kenyan coffee loves the heat. Feel free to hit the gas, especially early in the roast.
It’s a versatile coffee, picture-perfect for an adventurous espresso or easy-to-enjoy as a pour-over, batch brew, or even cold brew.
Taste Analysis by Chris Kornman
Mahiga is almost always the sleeper sensation of the Kenya arrival season. There’s something subtle about it that flies just under the usual radar in our sourcing selections – it's so easy to be attracted to classic flavor profiles with electric acidities, citrusy top notes, and the savory/sweet combo we’ve come to associate with coffees from the home country of Africa’s second-highest mountain.
I’m not here to argue that the coffees we source from Mahiga lack Kenyan character. Rather, it’s something additive, something more than what we expect, and yet somehow that seems to disguise the coffee, often on initial cuppings where I find myself asking “wasn’t this coffee more complex last year?” After at least three or four consecutive harvests on the Crown Jewel menu, I’ve learned to trust the coffee. It’ll be great. Give it another day or two off roast.
What I love about this coffee is the intricate flavors, resulting from such precise attention to uncommon details in processing steps – a secondary fermentation step in addition to the already unusual (outside of East Africa, at least) post fermentation soak.
I taste papaya, sweet basil, maple syrup, dried cherry and hints of very sweet grapefruit. Others have noted clove-like spices, honeycomb sweetness, and – yes – bergamot. It’s a complex coffee without being complicated, it’s effortlessly and decadently sweet, but you’d almost not notice as its balanced so perfectly by gentle savory notes and an elegant acidity.
I’m so pleased to have the coffee back in stock, even if just for a little while. We’ll feature it soon as an espresso here at The Crown, but I’ve already been making pour-overs and it’s one of those experiences where you just don’t realize what you’ve got until it’s gone. I find myself staring at the bottom of an empty mug and wishing there was just one more sip. I imagine I’ll feel the same when the green is long gone, hopefully in your hands, roasting happily on your machine, quietly impressing you with its subtle charm.
Source Analysis by Charlie Habegger
Mt. Kenya, at the helm of Kenya’s Central Province, is the second tallest peak on the continent of Africa and a commanding natural presence. The mountain itself is a single point inside a vast and surreal thicket of ascending national forest and active game protection communities. The central counties of Kenya extend from the center of the national park like six irregular pie slices, with their points meeting at the peak of the mountain. Many believe the best coffees in Kenya, often the world, are crafted in the wet, high elevation communities with mineral-rich soil that reside just along the lower edge of these forests. Nyeri is perhaps the most well-known of these central counties. Kenya’s coffee sector is dominated by a cooperative system of production whose members vote on representation, marketing, and milling contracts for their coffee, as well as profit allocation.
Othaya Farmers Cooperative Society, the umbrella organization that includes Mahiga Factory, is one of Kenya’s larger societies with 19 different factories and more than 14,000 farmer members across the southern Nyeri region. The Mahiga Factory has 400 members actively harvesting and delivering to the processing center. The factory’s total parchment output this past harvest was 152,000 kgs, meaning the average member of Mahiga is farming enough coffee fruit for roughly 11 30kg units of exportable green. Mahiga Factory’s chairman is Newton Mugai, one of the founding directors of Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters (KCCE).
KCCE is an historic organization of almost 4,000 individual cooperatives. The group was formed in 2009 with the express goal of managing marketing and exporting operations cooperatively (as opposed to contractually with third parties) and thereby increasing returns to farms. The economics of smallholder systems are consistently difficult everywhere in the world, and in Kenya in particular the number of individual margins sliced off an export price before payment reaches the actual farms is copious, leaving only a small percentage to support coffee growth itself. Most often, these dividends arrive many months after harvest. By managing more of the value chain itself, KCCE can capture a greater margin on behalf of the farms. Farmers belonging to Mahiga receive 55 shillings per kilogram of fresh cherry delivered to the factory, the equivalent of $1.40/lb of the green coffee price.
Kenya is of course known for some of the most meticulous at-scale processing found anywhere in the world. Bright white parchment, nearly perfectly sorted by density and bulk conditioned at high elevations, is the norm, and a matter of pride even for generations of Kenyan processing managers who prefer drinking Kenya’s tea, which is abundantly farmed in nearby Muranga county. Ample water supply in the central growing regions has historically allowed factories to wash, and wash, and soak, and wash their coffees again entirely with fresh, cold river water.
Mahiga typically ferments twice: once under water for 12 hours, and again under fresh water for another 12-36 hours, with a washing in between. Double fermentation is very rare in Kenya, and, based on our experience, the technique is strongly correlated with excellent cleanliness and clarity in the cup, and Mahiga’s lots are some of the best and most balanced Kenyas we’ve tasted all year.
After fermentation is complete, the clean parchment soaks for 16 hours, again in fresh water, before it is sorted by density and brought to the tables to dry, which typically takes two weeks. After drying is complete the coffee is stored on site and eventually delivered to the Othaya dry mill for grading and a final density sort. The established milling and sorting by grade, or bean size, is a longstanding tradition and positions Kenya coffees well for roasters by tightly controlling the physical preparation and creating a diversity of profiles from a single processing batch.
Green Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano
Cherry contributed by 400 farmers is soaked in fresh water two times and then dried on raised beds. Double washed and even triple washed processing is very common for Kenyan coffee due to the easy access of river water all around the country. The cultivar is a mix of commonly distributed and grown cultivar types from the region; SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11 and Batian.
Kenyan coffee typically is in the above average range and beyond for density, and this coffee hits those expectations with ease. With above average moisture content and slightly above average water activity, you should be able to push the heat with ease to get the bright and charming notes we love in Kenyan coffees.
Loring S15 Falcon Analysis by Doris Garrido
Kenya Mahiga will be featured on our menu as an espresso soon, and for this reason I have used the Loring roaster. Although I initially roasted 5.5 lbs. on the Diedrich, I made the final adjustments on the Loring to perfect the profile before serving it to The Crown bar.
Mahiga coffee will require a lot of heat during the initial drying phase and on the overall roast to bring the plummy tartness of the Kenya that we like, and I am looking for. For this I aim to complete the roast in a maximum of 8 minutes, passing through the drying phase as quickly as possible.
To achieve this, I used a high charge temperature; with the machine operating at 50% capacity, I set the charge temperature to 475F and applied 100% power as soon as the system allowed. As the beans approached the cracking point, I began reducing the temperature by 10% at the time till it ended at 60%. I monitored the rate of rise closely, adjusting to maintain a steady pace during cracking.
In this instance, I reduced the power slightly more than what I needed and then increased it 5% immediately after to avoid losing power at the end. The temperatures rose towards the end, but not too much. I dropped the coffee at 415F with a development time of 1 minute and 39 seconds.
The aroma of this coffee revealed its potential, with prominent notes of apricot and ripe plum, showcasing a complex tardiness. It also had a sweet and delicious caramelized lemon flavor, reminiscent of a grilled lemon-purely delicious.
Aillio Bullet R1 IBTS Analysis by Evan Gilman
Unless otherwise noted, we use both the roast.world site and Artisan software to document our roasts on the Bullet. You can find our roast documentation below, by searching on roast.world, or by clicking on the Artisan links below.
Just going into this coffee, it’s clear that it will be a pleasure to roast. High density and consistent screen size make a happy roaster. What’s more, this is a coffee we’ve had come through the Crown a number of times over the years, always leaving a path of people lifted off their feet like so many Looney Tunes characters swooning over windowsill pie. And let’s keep those pie references coming, because this coffee takes the cake for recent arrivals.
I started my roast off with a medium-high charge of 464F, but with lower heat application of P6 so that the coffee could “soak” up some of the heat in the barrel without moving too quickly. At turning point, I increased heat to P8, then increased fan and drew back a bit to P7 before yellowing started at around 4 minutes. From yellowing, I reduced heat further to P6, letting the coffee ride out to first crack before toggling between P5 and P6 to keep the coffee rolling through first crack. Throughout this time, I was gradually increasing fan speed, ending up at F5 as my top airflow setting.
Crack tends to happen a bit earlier on Kenyan coffees in my experience. Whereas most coffees tend to crack from 385-390F on the bullet, this one cracked at 379F. Because of this, I was able to garner a whopping 20% of the roast in post-crack development. I did end up getting a bit of a spike in my rate of change at the end of roast, so do be careful in allocating some of your heat potential to post-crack development without crashing the roast too early.
This flub didn’t make itself known in the cup. When tasting this coffee, Chris and I noted gentle basil, peach, jackfruit, and the slightest hint of bright sungold tomato (the little yellow guys, fresh off the vine). If ever there were a coffee to maintain a sense of bright wakefulness through the beginnings of winter, it’s this one. The summery flavors mellowed out as the coffee aged, and five days off roast, I got some very pleasant baking spice, cocoa, and (wow) maple donut flavors in the background.
The Mahiga is a coffee for savoring and fits that ideal of “coffee-like coffee” while also adding the zip that keeps you coming back for sips. I look forward to drinking this one at the Crown soon!
You can follow along with my roast here at roast.world: https://roast.world/egilman/roasts/t0Z2imxgYnFpm_Lm7ENl_
Ikawa Pro V3 Analysis by Isabella Vitaliano
Our current Ikawa practice compares two sample roast profiles, originally designed for different densities of green coffee. The two roasts differ slightly in total length, charge temperature, and time spent between color change in first crack. You can learn more about the profiles here.
This lot is from the group KCCE, a historic organization in Kenya with over 4,000 contributing cooperatives. On the cupping table the team got notes like navel orange, maple syrup and dried cherry with a spicy clove aftertaste.
The low density roast was a little more savory, with sage, pine and sweet caramel notes. Those classic savory Kenyan flavors really came out in this cup.
On the high density profile, we got notes like lemon curd, grapefruit, key lime pie and mango. A bit zestier overall and more complex.
Doris and I preferred the high density profile! This matches up nicely with her roast analysis. Check out the bullet and production roast for more details.
You can roast your own by linking to our profiles in the Ikawa Pro app here:
- Roast 1: Low Density Sample Roast
- Roast 2: High Density Sample Roast
Espresso Analysis by MJ Smith
There’s not much that makes me happier than a good Kenyan coffee on espresso. This coffee specifically is one of my annual favorites. I don’t know if it’s the combination of the tasting notes, or if it’s because of Charlie’s source analysis, but this coffee always reminds me of pie. Either way, this double washed and double fermented coffee is double the fun on espresso! (Sorry I couldn’t help myself!) I tried a bunch of different dial recipes, and just barely narrowed it down to two favorites.
The first recipe I’m going to mention has a dose of 19g, a yield of 39g, and a pull time of 25 seconds. With my first sip, all I could think of were the warm and cozy vibes of early autumn, when the days still have a little warmth to them, but then dusk swoops in with a nice cool breeze. I picked up notes of baked apple, toasted marshmallow, strawberry ice cream, cinnamon, salted caramel, and orange candies, with just a hint of umami.
For the second recipe, I increased the coffee dose to 19.5g, dropped the yield down to 38g, which resulted in a 29 second pull time. This shot had me and the rest of the barista team thinking one thing: Key Lime Pie! Tangy, but warm and sweet; smooth and creamy, but with a little zing! Additionally, we picked up notes of dark cherry, oregano, vanilla, pear, hibiscus, and sesame. There’s a little something in there for everyone!
This coffee makes for a perfect espresso, which is why I’m so excited that it will be one of the Featured Espressos we serve here at The Crown in the coming weeks. Keep an eye out for it! As for dialing it in yourself, I recommend a medium-high dose, a high yield, and a pull time on the faster side. It also paired really nicely with milk! I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!
