Sabbath Coffee Co. is a microroaster based out of east Michigan that I’ve been stalking on Instagram for a while! They were gracious enough to send me some of their coffees to try out and so without further ado…
Roaster Profile: Sabbath Coffee Co. – learn more about Sabbath Coffee Co. and their coffee philosophy!
Purchase this coffee directly from Sabbath Coffee Co. for $12/12oz
SABBATH COFFEE CO. KENYA NYERI GATAMBOYA AB
I was really looking forward to this coffee to compare it head to head to the last coffee I reviewed, a Kenya Gatomboya AB from Nordskogen Coffee in Minneapolis! It’s really cool to be able to try the same coffee roasted by different people to see what, if any, differences there are in the cup.
Gatomboya washing station is in the Nyeri region of Kenya. Here, mostly smallholder farmers join co-ops to pool their coffee together where it’s separated into bigger lots and also processed. In Kenya, coffee is separated by size, the the “AB” in the same means it is the second largest size of bean in the Kenyan system after AA. Bean size and quality have nothing to do with one another, so an AA coffee is not necessarily better than an AB, it’s simply a larger size of bean. This AB lot is composed of the famed SL-28 and SL-34 varietals. The SL-28 hybrid was developed in the 1930’s and gained a lot of popularity in Kenya. It’s largely responsible for the big, bright flavors Kenyan coffee is known for.
Sabbath gives us notes of, “Meyer lemon, aromatic profile, kumquat” for this coffee. I haven’t had a kumquat in 22 years, so let’s see what I tasted! As usual, I used my 1:16 ratio in the notNeutral pourover with Kalita 185 filters. Using 28g of coffee to 450g of water, my extractions took about 3:30.
I got a lot of brown sugar aroma coming off the coffee bed as it was blooming, which was a nice sign! There was a lot of sweetness in the cup aroma, too, with sort of a raisiny, dark fruit sort of undertone, too. Compared to the Nordskogen version of this coffee, the roast is a bit darker on this coffee and it accentuates some of the sweeter, darker elements than the full-on brightness that dominated the other roaster’s coffee. This one has a lot of sweetness with notes of raisin for me. There is certainly acidity in the cup, but it complements the sweetness in this case more so than being the star of the show. It has sweet lemon notes and a bit of grapefruit as well. The lemon comes through more in the second half of the sip and it’s a really nice balance to the big sweetness in this coffee.
Sabbath’s Gatamboya AB has a nice, full body but a relatively short and tame aftertaste. It’s a great, balanced example of a Kenyan coffee that has pleasant acidity without being a challenge to drink. This is an easy drinking cup and I really enjoyed my samples of it! A nice introduction to Sabbath Coffee Co.! I have an Ethiopian to try from them, too, so stay tuned for that review coming up soon!