Coffee

Although it is just south of the birthplace – Ethiopia – of coffee, coffee cultivation did not begin in Kenya until the late 19th century apparently under the direction of missionaries. The British, though, significantly ramped up production around the turn of the century. Today, Kenyan coffee production is known for its network of small farms and mills.   More than 6 million Kenyans are said to be employed in the coffee industry. A cooperative system has evolved over the years with at its core an open auction system.   This auction system may be what has allowed Kenyan coffee to maintain its highly regarded quality. 

There is some confusion among drinkers about the much sought after “AA” designation of Kenyan coffee.   The “AA” is not a type of coffee per se, but rather the label refers to the size of the bean itself.   The Coffee Board of Kenya has established a grading system based on the size and form of the bean.   Coffees assigned the grade “AA” are generally the largest bean. The grading scale, from largest to smallest, is AA, AB, PB, C, E, TT and T. One reason quality is often remarked to coincide with the size of the bean is the higher oil content of larger beans.  Kenyan AA beans also are cultivated from the premium Arabica coffee plants, rather than the less flavorful Robusta coffee plants.

After the beans are milled, the coffee is graded according to size.   Samples from each lot are then provided to licensed exporters, who then bid on each lot according to their own evaluations. Weekly auctions are held in downtown Nairobi.  The open, transparent system wherein the highest bidder obtains the lot reinforces a positive price-quality relationship – that is, the best quality yields a higher price. 

Of course, the quality of Kenyan coffee is not based solely on its exporting infrastructure. The quality must originate in the cultivation process. For certain, Kenya has rich, acidic volcanic soil where the coffee is grown at altitudes ranging between 5,000 and 7000 feet above sea level. Production is concentrated on the high plateaus that surround 17,000-foot Mount Kenya.   Here the climate is moderate throughout the year along with a relatively consistent rainfall patterns. Kenya has invested in researching the best cultivation techniques and even the smallest farmer is likely to be knowledgeable about coffee production. 

Premium Kenyan coffee beans – in particular, AA beans – are universally wet processed. The cherry surrounding the bean is removed and then the beans are submerged in a water tank. In the water tank, a natural fermentation process breaks down the cherry residue left on the bean. The final parchment layer is then removed after the beans have been dried by hulling.

So what should you expect from a cup of Kenyan coffee?  While it generally is classified as medium bodied coffee, Kenyan coffee packs an intense flavor and enticing aroma. Multi-faceted in taste a premium Kenyan coffee enthralls with fruit dimensions ranging from citrus to berry along with noted wine-toned acidity. It is a rare Kenyan cup that will leave the drinker with an unpleasant aftertaste.

The next time you are seeking a quality coffee, remember to try the king of African coffees – Kenyan AA. 

Joe Jefferson is the resident coffee expert at World Trader Coffee, which is proud to offer online a fine Kenyan AA coffee as well as a full selection of African coffees.

Author: Joe Jefferson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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By the 17th Century, with the popularity of coffee ever increasing in Europe, the interest of the then World Superpowers – Britain, France, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain – also grew. Up until this point, coffee imported into Europe had come from the Arabian Peninsula, over which none of these nations had any control. The Europeans had sample coffee and liked it, and now they wanted to start producing it for themselves. The race was on to establish their own coffee plantations in their respective colonies.

It was the Netherlands who took an early lead in this race. In 1616, Dutch spies successfully managed to smuggle a coffee plant out of Mocha (Yemen). Although, to begin with, they were only involved in small scale cultivation. This changed in 1658, when they defeated the Portuguese to take control of Sri Lanka. Very soon coffee plantations spread all over Sri Lanka and into Southern India. Then, in 1699, the Dutch started production in Indonesia, when cuttings were successfully transplanted from Malabar (India) to Java.

Without help from the Dutch, the other Superpowers would not have got out the starting blocks. By 1706, the first coffee beans from Java had reached Amsterdam, along with a coffee plant for the Botanical Garden. From this plant, a number of successful cuttings were made. These new plants soon found their way into various botanical gardens throughout Europe as they were given as gifts to visiting dignitaries.

One such plant was given to King Louis XIV of France in 1714, by the Burgermeister of Amsterdam. The plant was re-homed in le Jardin des Plantes in Paris. Several years later, a French Naval Officer named Mathieu Gabriel de Clieu, while on leave from his station in Martinique, asked for the King’s permission to take a cutting of this plant back with him. Unfortunately for him, the King refused his request. Convinced that the Caribbean would be an ideal place to cultivate coffee, de Clieu led a daring moonlight raid on the Jardin des Plantes to secure a cutting.

In 1723, de Clieu began his journey back to Martinique, with his newly procured coffee cutting in tow. He kept the shoot in a glass cabinet, which he would bring up onto the deck each day so it could be warmed by the sun. If de Clieu had thought that the hard part of his mission was over, he would have been wrong. As, during the journey, one of the men on board (allegedly with a Dutch accent) tried to wrestle the plant off de Clieu, managing to break a side-shoot in the process. The crew had to fend off an attack by pirates which lasted nearly a whole day; a storm descended that shattered the glass cabinet; and the portable water supply ran so low that de Clieu had to share his water ration with the plant.

Finally de Clieu returned to Martinique, where he successfully cultivated the coffee plant. Some twenty months later de Clieu had his first harvest, which he distributed among the island’s doctors and other intellectuals. As luck would have it, at the time the cocoa plants on the island were doing badly after a recent volcanic eruption, so coffee was soon adopted by the locals. Within three years, coffee plantations spread all over Martinique and to the neighbouring islands of St. Dominique and Guadeloupe. Coffee production was so successful in the Caribbean that King Louis XIV forgave de Clieu for his earlier transgression, making him governor of the Antilles.

The coffee plant had become a very desirable object. In 1727, the Brazilian government decided it was time they joined the coffee market. Using the guise of an intermediary in a boundary dispute between the French and Dutch in the Guianas, Brazil sent Lieutenant Colonel Francisco de Mello Palheta on a mission to steal a coffee plant from the French. Using his charm and charisma, Palheta befriended the governor of French Guiana’s wife. Once the dispute was resolved, the governor’s wife presented Palheta with a farewell gift, a coffee cutting concealed in a bouquet of flowers. From this scant shoot grew the world’s largest coffee empire.

The British did not seriously compete in the coffee race until 1796, when they took control of Sri Lanka from the Dutch. With the arrival of the British, even more land was cleared for coffee plantations. So much so, that the relatively small island of Sri Lanka briefly became the world’s largest coffee producer in the 1860s. However, in 1869, a lethal fungus known as coffee rust arrived on the island. This fungus causes premature defoliation of a coffee plant, seriously weakening its structure and reducing its yield of berries. Since rust was not considered to be a serious disease, the British continued to clear more land for coffee plantations during the next decade. It was not until 1879 that they realised the seriousness of the situation. Unfortunately by then it was too late: the productivity of the plants had declined so greatly that they were no longer economically viable.

Luckily for the British, a successful marketing campaign led by the British East India Company for tea entitled “the cup that cheers”, back in the early 18th Century, had laid the foundations for tea to become the British national drink. Between 1700 and 1757 the average annual tea imports into Britain more than quadrupled and consumption continued to grow steadily for the rest of the century. So when coffee rust devastated the coffee plantations of Sri Lanka, and later India, production simply switched and the coffee plants were uprooted and replanted with tea. Although Britain continued to cultivate coffee on a limited amount of colonial land, mostly in Jamaica, Uganda and Kenya, by the end of the 19th Century tea had surpassed coffee as the beverage of choice.

James Grierson is the owner of Galla Coffee: http://www.gallacoffee.co.uk – Uk online retailer of designer coffee accessories. Through the Coffee Knowledge section of his website he aims to help people understand more about coffee and give them tips on how to make great tasting coffee in their home.

Check out http://www.gallacoffee.co.uk/acatalog/Coffee_Knowledge.html for more articles or if you have a question send it to: coffeeknowledge@gallacoffee.co.uk

Author: James Grierson
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
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