BEWARE: This unfriendly Holiday coffee will destroy you. Long gone is the time of families gathered around the fire singing songs of joy, feasting in abundance to all this year has brought. Instead, all that lies under that sad, decrepit tree is this dark roasted Kenya coffee. Pure black and smelling of sweet tobacco, this Kenya auction lot still boasts of caramelized sugars, fired roasted citrus fruits and a rich, thick body. Performs diabolically well as a filter or espresso. This coffee comes to us through our new friends at NKG Mills, Tropical. Each year we coordinate a post-harvest trip to Kenya in order to cup selections from the harvest, and over the last two seasons, we’ve added Tropical to our route. Chris at NKG routinely puts amazing coffees on the table while upholding a very high level of hospitality. Early this year we visited for some quick cupping, and during that time selected a few lots to fill in some gaps of our Kenya offerings. We cupped through two tables during our time there and selected this Kagumoini AA to be the bulk of our Krampus offering, due to it’s pronounced acidity and layered complexity that holds up to the developed roast of our holiday single origin. It’s only natural that our ‘unfriendly’ offering for the year was facilitated by one of the friendliest people at Tropical. Never one to just settle for normal cupping, Chris coordinated a trip into Nairobi National park, where we tracked some lions while driving on what would barely be a horse trail. Topping off the trip, we finished up the day at an incredible farm to table restaurant on the outskirts of Nairobi. Kenya is always full of surprises.