Kiambu Regional PB, Kenya, Washed

Coffee reached Kenya in 1893, when French Holy Ghost missionaries planted Bourbon seed stock from Réunion, and by 1899 the same order had established coffee at St Austin's Mission on the edge of Nairobi, bordering what is now Kiambu. Kiambu quickly became one of the first centres of commercial estate coffee in the colony, and its farms remain among the country's most historic. The 1933 Coffee Act established the Coffee Board of Kenya and, from 1934, green coffee was sold through the Nairobi auction, a system that rewards quality with price, with reforms in recent years also allowing direct sales to buyers. Today Kenya's Central region, taking in Kiambu, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Murang'a and Embu, produces the majority of the country's coffee. Kiambu is also home to the Coffee Research Institute at Ruiru, where the Ruiru 11 and Batian varieties were developed. The county's red volcanic soils, reliable rainfall and elevations of up to 2,200 metres produce coffees with bright, juicy acidity, and although Nairobi's expanding suburbs have claimed some historic estate land, Kiambu's smallholders and estates continue to produce some of Kenya's most recognisable cups.

This lot begins with an unusual detail inside the coffee cherry. Peaberries form when a single rounded seed develops instead of the usual flat-sided pair, creating a smaller bean that is separated during dry milling. Here, that selection offers a concentrated expression of Kiambu's classic SL28 and SL34 character.

The coffee is drawn from smallholder communities across Kiambu County and curated by Project Origin for a consistent regional profile. Farmers deliver ripe, hand-picked cherry to Kiambu FCS, where it is sorted, pulped, fermented, washed and dried on raised beds before the peaberries are screened into their own grade. Grown between 1,700 and 2,200 metres in fertile red volcanic soils, the cherries mature slowly and build the sweetness and vivid acidity associated with the region. The result is a juicy, fruit-led cup that captures Kiambu through one of Kenya's most distinctive coffee grades.