There are a lot of things that I like about Kansas City’s Oddly Correct coffee. The coffee is great, most importantly, but the bags make for a super presentation, too. Each one is hand printed on a manual letterpress machine in the roastery a couple doors down from the cafe. The art on each bag is pressed from woodcuts drawn and carved by owner, Gregory Kolsto. Great coffee and unique packaging took me to Oddly to pick up a couple of bags of coffee to send to Poland for this year’s Third Wave Witchteln (coffee secret Santa). I couldn’t help but sneak enough out of the two bags I sent so I could try what I was sending, too! I tracked down my recipient through social media and he is loving this particular coffee. They did a cupping of it with a bunch of other coffees at the coffee shop where he works in Warsaw and he said this one won! Now let’s find out why!
Sadly, this coffee is sold out at Oddly Correct, but it’s worth writing about, anyway. I have yet to buy bad beans or be served anything less than great here, so they are definitely on my “buy/visit with full confidence” list. The coffee I’m looking at today is their Gachatha AB, a washed coffee from the Gachatha co-op in the Nyeri region of Kenya. Cafe Imports has some nice info about the co-op and their efforts to keep the water clean (a struggle when wet-processing coffee) and the trees happy for the local bird population. This coffee is washed, as most Kenyans are, and consists of the famed SL-28 and Ruiru 11 varietals grown at 1800-2100masl. I believe I paid $19 for this 12oz bag that went to Poland.
Oddly Correct offers tasting notes of, “pink lemonade sweet, raspberry, cherry tomato, creamy body and an herbal finish.” Kenyan coffees have been outrageously good, for my palate, this year, so I went into this one with high hopes and was not disappointed. I got fragrance notes of pink lemonade even from the beans before grinding! In the cup (oh, I used my usual 1:15 ratio in a Gino dripper with bleached Kalita 185 filters) there were aromas best described as sugary sweetness with a hint of tartness. I kept getting what I’ve been referring to lately as “coconut,” too, but I don’t think I’m exactly right. It’s coconutty, but not really. I can’t describe it well, obviously, but there was something else really pleasant that I’ll have to stick with as “coconut,” but it’s not like this coffee smelled like suntan lotion or anything. I need to work on that aroma next time I detect it and really figure out what it is.
Anyway, I was surprised by this coffee because it is SO sweet and soft and “round” to me. There was definitely some pink grapefruit in the acidity of this coffee, as well as a bit of sweet lemon. Surprisingly, though, the acidity, to me, in this coffee was pretty mellow, which is not what I expected from a Kenyan coffee. This mouthfeel is really creamy and full with a gentle aftertaste and a finish that is perfectly sweet. This coffee was incredibly drinkable and super inviting and I couldn’t find anything I didn’t like in it. At room temperature that herbal finish Oddly Correct wrote on the bag was apparent and it had a bit of a minty “feel” on my palate.
I loved this coffee and it’s proof, to me, of how great and diverse Kenyan coffees have been this year. There was something intangible about this coffee that made it super delicious and easy to drink and it was definitely $19 well spent!