July Mystery Reveal - Shoebox

It's time to reveal the mystery coffee for July! We hope you all enjoyed this one - Huge shoutout to Max from Shoebox for working with us!

About the coffee and the producer:

This lovely, clean and classic Peaberry lot comes from the central county of Kirinyaga in Kenya. 850 smallholders deliver cherry to the Kii Factory where coffees are sorted, processed, and milled. All operations at Kii are overseen by the Rungeto Farmers Cooperative Society, which also manages both Karimikui and Kiangoi Factories. Processing managers at Rungeto FCS are very well known for their meticulous systems surrounding sorting and processing, starting with 16-18 hours as an initial bulk fermentation washing step, where the progress of the fermentation is checked every 3 hours throughout. After that, it's put into density sorting channels where it's washed once again before being dried on raised beds. 

From Shoebox: Why we chose this coffee

Initially, I had an entirely different coffee planned for this release. A Colombian Java Washed that I thought would be pretty difficult to pin down, as it had gained a ton of fruitiness from a held in cherry step prior to washing. Upon arrival and the first test roast, it became clear that the coffee had become quite faded/woody and was not up to par with our quality standards (this will end up being used to dial in our larger batch approach.) With only a week and a half left until the Mystery Coffee was supposed to launch on the site, we pivoted to Kenya Kii - a well-known washing station with very consistent quality. If there's one thing I've learned as a roaster though, it's that things rarely ever go according to plan, and the stability of a coffee can be affected by so many different factors, it's impossible to predict what something will taste like until it's landed, roasted, and cupped on site. The first test roast of this coffee was very flat, papery, and lacking in any real acidity or sweetness. We were prepared to either dropout for the month or delay the launch of the Mystery until we could find something suitable. However, at the suggestion of Ross of Ceto Coffee, we decided to rehydrate this coffee and see what happened. Starting with 17kg of coffee and an unknown exact moisture content, we added 5% water by weight or 850ml and stirred it in, allowing the coffee to sit overnight for a total of 18 hours. The very first roast was slightly underdeveloped, but brewed quite well, so I knew we could make it work. After starting with way more heat upfront and adding 20s more development time, the resulting brew was brought back to life with complex florality, ripping acidity, and a lovely deep red sweetness. Cranberries, mandarin oranges, and chamomile immediately came to mind, but on other brews we also found hibiscus, cherries, jasmine, and chrysanthemum. Overall, we're over the moon with how this turned out, and very glad that we didn't let the hard work of these producers go to waste. It's been so awesome to see people discussing this one in the discord, and we're incredibly thankful to be able to showcase this beautiful coffee for y'all. 

Statistics

Now onto the top placers:

In first place with 22 points: BVsaPike!
In second place with 20 points: PahPah-Cee!
In third place with 19 points: ThePuffin!

Thanks to all who guessed! If you'd like to buy more from Shoebox, buy here: Shoebox Coffee

Be sure to guess if you join us for a mystery round. Join us for Ilse here: Mystery Coffee – ILSE Coffee