Chorongi AB, Kenya
FACTS
Flavour description: A berrylike and intense aroma of blackberry. This coffee is acidity driven with high phosphoric acidity. Chorongi has flavour of pink grapefruit, vanilla and strawberry jam, and a long-lasting vibrant acidity in the finish. The coffee is jam-like mouthfeel with a medium body.
Location: Nyeri, Kenya
Farmers: About 1000 smallholders in the surrounding areas deliver cherries to the Chorongi Factory (washing station). The farmers are organized in Cooperative Societies that act as umbrella organizations for the factories, where the smallholders deliver their coffee cherries for processing. Chorongi is connected to the Mutheka Coffee Farmer’s Society, which is consisting of more than 5600 active farmer members in 2021.
Factory:
Varietals: SL28, SL34
Harvest: Nov-January 2021
Elevation: 1300 masl
Soil: Deep, rich volcanic soil
Our current espresso recipe: 18g / 27 se/ 42 g (TDS about 9%, extraction around 19%).
Our current filter coffee recipe: Coffee ground slightly finer than powdered sugar. Use 32g to 500 ml of coffee, for about 2:30 min brew time.
Price transparency: The FOB price paid for this coffee was 4,63 US$/lb, which is 10.20US$/ kg.
The first Kenyan coffee of the year! Chorongi AB! There is quite no coffee as coffee from Kenya, and every year it is one of our absolute favorite taste profiles. You know that we at Drop Coffee are huge fans of clarity and vibrancy and are not afraid of acidity, well in this cup you will get it all!
In Kenya, the washing stations and process stations go by the name factories, hence Chorongi Factory. Know for the country's coffee, we get an exceptionally washed processed coffee as well as well sorted and clean dry milled. And this clarity truly shines through in the cup! The smallholders surrounding the Chorongi factory mainly have SL28 and SL34 varietal, known for their black currant vibrant flavour. This truly contributes to the intense taste profile of pink grapefruit this coffee has.
Nyeri is a famous region for its vibrant acidity in coffee. About 1000 smallholders are delivering coffee from the surrounding areas of the Chorongi factory. It is a mixture of small to medium farms. The ones that don’t have their own processing equipment such as a pulper delivers the coffee cherries to their local Cooperative. Many of the farmers are surrounded by several wet mills. They are free to choose where they want to deliver their cherries as members. Due to the traditional auction system in Kenya, quality is rewarded with higher prices. The better factories will then attract more farmers by producing coffee getting the highest prices, as well as giving a high payback rate to the farmers. This can in some cases be about 90% of the sales price after the cost of marketing and preparation is deducted.
At the Chorongi factory, the coffee cherries are being pulped and wet fermented for 16-24 hours under closed shade, graded in washing channels, soaked under clean water for 16 to 18 hours, and dried on raised beds for up to 15 days.
The coffee is being graded into AA, AB, and PB which refers to the bean size, where AA, as this coffee, is the larger beans and AB the second-largest beans. The coffee farms surrounding Chorongi are not grown at a super high altitude, 1300 meters, which gives a slightly more mature character compared to e.g the coffee Kamwangi, that you may have had from us (also back soon).
As a part of our price transparency work, we share the FOB price for all coffees. This coffee was 4,63 US$/lb, which is 10.20US$/kg. The price paid to the Farmer Cooperative Society was 7.90US$/kg of sorted green coffee.