SL28 coffee
SL28 is the variety behind Kenya's blackcurrant acidity — selected by Scott Agricultural Laboratories in the 1930s for drought tolerance, and kept ever since for how it tastes.
It is a low-yielding, disease-susceptible plant that no agronomist would choose today on agronomic merit alone. What it produces, on volcanic soil at 1,700 metres and above, is an acidity with more structure than almost anything else in coffee: blackcurrant, grapefruit, tomato, and a sweetness underneath that keeps it from being merely sharp.
SL28 has been planted well beyond Kenya — Uganda, Zambia, and increasingly Latin America — but the Kenyan expression remains the reference.
- Coffees in the catalogue
- 7
- Grown in
- Kenya
- Common notes
- blackcurrant, juicy, tomato, grapefruit and blood orange
- Price range
- $20.00 – $45.00
7 SL28 coffees in the catalogue
- Kamavindi — Counter Culture Coffee. blood orange, nectarine and juicy. $33.00 / 340 g.
- Mamuto AA — George Howell Coffee. blackberry, plum, cherry and violet. $45.00 / 340 g.
- Kenya Nyeri AB — SK Coffee. blackcurrant, tomato and citrus. $24.00 / 340 g.
- Karinga AB — Little Wolf Coffee Roasters. blackcurrant, grapefruit and juicy. $20.00 / 340 g.
- Kenya Karimikui AB — Heart Coffee Roasters. blackcurrant, tomato and lime. $20.00 / 340 g.
- Kenya Kii — Dogwood Coffee Co. blackcurrant, grapefruit and brown sugar. $25.00 / 340 g.
- Kiangoi — La Cabra. redcurrant, hibiscus and crisp. $25.00 / 250 g.