French Mission Espresso

Flovor: Maple syrup, cherries & chocolate

Cupping score: 88.5

Origin: Kenya

Region: Thika

Producer: Boyce Harries

Varietal: Kenya red Bourbon French Mission

Process: Kenyan washed

Altitude: 1525 MASL

Roasted for: Espresso - medium roast

CHANIA

The Harries family has run Chania Estate for several generations. It is one of the last two medium-sized farms in Kenya today. It is located on deep volcanic red soils and borders the Chania River on an area of 73 hectares. Together with the Oreti farm, also owned by the Harries family, it has nearly 80 hectares of native and planted forests to encourage biodiversity.
Today the Chania and Oreti farms are planted with more than 50% red Bourbon. The rest includes Ruiru 11, K7, SL28 and the new Batian variety. The farms employ 40 people full-time, but during the harvest, up to 300 employees are needed to select and prepare coffee. A kindergarten has been opened on the farm to take care of the employees' children.
The coffee harvest is done entirely by hand, and the coffees are all processed on-site. Most coffees are processed wet, but Boyce also produces plain coffees, honey, or mono-varietal micro-lots

PREPARATION

The Kenyan fully-washed process is a special process that involves double fermentation. After de-pulping, the cherries dry ferment in vats for 8 to 12 days. They are then washed and dry fermented a second time in vats for 5 hours. After this double fermentation, the cherries are washed again and then immersed in water to remove all the mucilage overnight. The next morning, the cherries are spread in a thin layer on drying tables (no more than 2 or 3 cherries deep) and left to air for about 4 hours to reduce the cherry moisture content to 55%. The cherries are then placed on African beds for two weeks to reach 10 to 12% humidity.

We roast our coffee Mondays and Wednesdays! All weekly orders are dispatched twice a week Tuesdays & Thursdays. On all of our coffee bags, we provide you with a roast date. To get the best out of our coffee, we aim to rest it for 7-14 days after roasting (depending on the type of coffee); this allows the flavours to open up, offering much more clarity to your cup.