it’s like if you melted a hi-chew
Early on in my specialty coffee journey, one of the most memorable cups I drank was Mamuto AB from Kenya, roasted by George Howell. I can still smell it.
The sweetness and bright blackberry flavor was a wake up call. Shouting the potential of high quality coffee. Unlike the house blends I had been drinking, this coffee didn’t taste like “coffee”. I proudly declared that I paid $27 dollars for the bag.1 And pried open the seal to offer friends a whiff of that intoxicating aroma.
Years later, I know the flavor profile of Kenyan coffees well and continue to enjoy the sweet, fruity cups.
Which is why the Ivan Gutierrez SL28 from Costa Rica,2 roasted by Ilse, fascinated me. Ilse describes it as, “arguably our favorite coffee we tried from Ivan, perhaps even topping his Gesha!” They taste “Green apple, Jolly Rancher, Watermelon”.
Many Kenyan coffees combine SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11, and Batian. (I think there are a multitude of reasons why, including the size and style of farms in Kenya, the use of cooperative washing stations, and the disease resistance of different varieties.) That isn’t to say having a handful of those varieties in a bag is a bad thing but this was a double opportunity. To try SL28 on its own and to taste it grown in a terroir 8,348 miles away from Kenya.
And boy does the taste deliver. It reminds me of green apple Hi-Chew. Depending on the brew method, I also get fermented watermelon flavor; a taste that only exists in my imagination. (It also reminds me of another coffee I recently had, the Hamasho, Ethiopia, roasted by Sey. After four weeks of resting, the peach candy flavor was super loud.)
This coffee tastes very different from the Mamuto AB but I love that it does. After many years of specialty coffee, it’s refreshing to suddenly drink a washed coffee that tastes like green apple candy. Coffee continues to surprise me and that’s why I keep going deeper down the rabbit hole.
Now I can proudly declare that I spent $42 as I offer free smells to passersby.3
brewing advice
Note: I don’t plan on giving specific recipes in these posts. Instead, I’ll provide guidance or variations in approach based on the coffees characteristics.
- Rest this coffee for at least 3 weeks (Ilse says peak flavor at 4 to 6 weeks but I’m impatient)
- Softer water is your friend
- I didn’t need to push extractions to get a ton of flavor
- Shoutout to Black Fox Coffee on Pine Street in NYC which carried this and a wonderful variety of other coffee. ↩︎
- 2021 Cup of excellence winner ↩︎
- I had no idea the plural of passerby was “passersby”. That sounds incredibly odd in my head. ↩︎