How is Kenyan coffee graded? What is Kenyan AA TOP coffee?

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Kenyan coffee is undoubtedly the most complex coffee in the world, and this complexity is multifaceted.

First of all, starting from the simplest, coffee from this beautiful East African country has a huge bean shape and a variety of flavors, such as colorful mosaics, showing the impact of different planting areas, varieties, and processing methods on coffee flavor.

Second, the way the Kenyan market operates: dominated by traditional auction systems, it is not easy to buy micro-batches of coffee on specific separate plots. During the peak season, exporters, traders and buyers test 150,200 or more cups of coffee every day in preparation for a live bid in Nairobi.

The coffee bureau will first send samples of these coffee beans to be auctioned to interested buyers for trial, and hold an auction every Tuesday at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange Coffee Exchange (Nairobi Coffee Exchange) in Nairobi, the capital of Kenya. Through a transparent auction mechanism and a dual-system parallel approach of official sales agents and independent sales agents, foreign buyers can also directly negotiate with corresponding producers to buy coffee. There is no need to go through the official auction board, so producers' hard work can be rewarded more fairly and equitably, without being exploited by the brokers in the middle.

Of course, these are the coffees that end up on the market, not counting the so-called "second window / channel" or "relationship / other channel" coffee samples (negotiate directly with the local raw bean representative or or the estate). Note, however, that direct procurement does not necessarily mean simple procurement.

Kenyan coffee grading

Kenyan coffee is graded according to the size, shape and hardness of coffee beans, from high to low into AA or AA+, AB, PB, C, E, TT, T:

AA level: size between 17muri and 18 mesh

AB grade: between 15 Mel and 16 mesh, accounting for the majority of output, but also the most common grade of raw beans

Class C: size between 12Mui 14 mesh

PB: round raw beans, accounting for about 10% of all coffee beans

E grade (elephant bean): two beans in one large variant bean, also known as elephant ear bean Elephant ear, mostly in more than 18 mesh, also known as elephant bean, its quantity is very small.

TT grade: from AA and AB grade beans, the lighter raw beans blown by air flow filter indicate that the beans are soft and the hardness is not up to standard.

T level: below 12 items. T grade is from C grade beans, the lighter raw beans blown by air flow filter, the beans are soft, the hardness is not up to standard, and the particles are small, and there are many defective beans.

MH/ML grade: beans that have not been washed and have not been selected, because they have been harvested, fall beans, accounting for about 7% of all coffee beans, belong to the lowest grade beans, only for the Kenyan domestic market.

The above is Kenya's official grading system, in addition to Kenyan exporters or raw bean traders, for AA grade and AB grade of these two grades of coffee raw beans added a special classification (not officially recognized by the Kenyan country), the order is TOP, PLUS (+), FAQ.

TOP

This is graded on the basis of cup test results. at present, it is not the official grading standard of Kenya. exporters will add their own grades, so it is inevitable that commercial behavior factors will be considered, so it can only be used as a reference. everything still has to return to baking and making cup tests. that's the right thing to do.

PLUS (+)

For the same bean, due to human factors, the standards of Company An and Company B are different, so it will produce different results. after all, there is no unified grading standard for this grade, coffee flavor cup test results, there is no standard to grade, so this can only be used as a reference, everything still has to return to their own cup test.

FAQ

Fair to Average Quality will have some slight defective beans, but it does not affect the flavor.

Speaking of which, we often see things like "AA+" and "AA++". Is there anything special about that?

As we mentioned earlier, the grades of TOP, PLUS (+) and FAQ are agreed by Kenyan coffee, so even if it is the same bean, the standards of each company are different, so the results are not the same. It is precisely because it is graded and added by exporters, there will inevitably be commercial behavior factors, so it can only be used as a reference. It depends on the performance of beans after actual baking and cup testing.

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