🇺🇬 Mbale Mountain Harvest

Uganda exports more coffee than almost anywhere in Africa, and the overwhelming majority of it is robusta headed for instant coffee and cheap blends. The arabica grown on the Mount Elgon slopes around Mbale is a completely different proposition and still trades at a discount largely because of the country’s reputation.

That’s a sourcing opportunity, and this is the lot that proves it.

Growing on a volcano

Mount Elgon is an extinct shield volcano on the Kenyan border, with deep volcanic soils and reliable rainfall. Farms sit high. High enough that the cherry ripens slowly, which concentrates sugars in the seed. The coffee is washed on raised beds by smallholder groups organised into an organic-certified cooperative structure.

What it tastes like

The most conventionally comforting coffee we roast. Dark chocolate and walnut dominate, the body is full rather than merely present, and there’s a bright citrus lift at the end that keeps it from being flat. It behaves like a classic breakfast coffee without being a boring one.

How we roast it

Medium-dark, which is unusual for us. Most of the roster is roasted light to keep origin character intact, but this coffee’s character is the chocolate and body, and both need the roast to develop them. We take it well past first crack and stop short of second, with the longest development of anything on our roster.

Roasted light it’s thin and disappointing. This is a case where a darker roast is the correct choice rather than a way to hide a defect.

Brewing it

The one to use if you drink coffee with milk. Espresso, moka pot, or a full-immersion method all work. In a French press at 1:15 it makes about the best mug of everyday coffee we know how to produce.