Previously, we talked about the coffee grading in Ethiopia. Today, let’s take a look at what the coffee grading in Kenya is like! After all, when we see Kenyan coffee, we will see things like AA and AB. What exactly do these refer to? What is AA TOP?
The coffee producers in Kenya are mainly divided into two types. The first type is large estates, and the other is the so-called “small farmers”. However, whether it is a large coffee estate or a small farmer, the coffee beans produced after refined processing will mostly be transported to the official Kenya Coffee Board for unified grading and identification.
The coffee board will send the raw bean samples of these collected coffee beans to interested buyers for bean testing, and hold bidding auctions at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange in the capital of Kenya, Nairobi, every Tuesday. Through the transparent auction mechanism and the parallel system of both the official sales agent and the independent sales agent, foreign buyers can also directly negotiate with the producers to purchase coffee without going through the official auction board, so that the hard work of the producers can receive more fair and equal feedback, and will not be exploited by the middle brokers for most of the profits.
The Kenyan government takes the coffee industry extremely seriously. Here, felling or destroying coffee trees is illegal, and the quality requirements for coffee are rarely seen in any other country to be as strict as in Kenya. From the coffee grading, we can also clearly feel this.
The grading of Kenyan coffee mainly depends on the size, shape, and hardness of the coffee beans, and is divided from high to low into AA or AA+, AB, PB, C, E, TT, and T:
AA level: Between 17 – 18 mesh in size.
AB level: Between 15 – 16 mesh in size, which accounts for the majority of the output and is also the most common raw bean grade.
C level: Between 12 – 14 mesh in size.
PB level: Round raw beans, which account for about 10% of all coffee beans.
E level (elephant beans): Two beans combined into one large variant bean, also known as elephant ear beans Elephant ear, mostly above 18 mesh, also known as elephant beans, and their quantity is very small.
TT level: The lighter-weight raw beans blown out by the air flow selector from the AA and AB grade beans, indicating that the beans are soft and the hardness does not meet the standard.
T level: Below 12 mesh. The T-level is the lighter-weight raw beans blown out by the air flow selector from the C-level beans, with softer bean quality, non-compliant hardness, and small particles, with many defective beans.
MH/ML level: Beans that have not been washed and processed, nor have been selected, as they are the beans that have fallen after being harvested, accounting for about 7% of all coffee beans and are the lowest grade beans, only for the domestic demand market in Kenya.
The above is the official grading system of the Kenyan state. In addition, Kenyan exporters or raw bean traders have added special grading (not recognized by the Kenyan state) to the AA and AB grade coffee bean grades, in the order of TOP, PLUS (+), and FAQ.
TOP
This is graded based on the cup testing results. It is not currently an officially recognized grading standard of the Kenyan state. The exporter’s own grading addition inevitably considers commercial behavior factors, so it can only be used as a reference. Everything still needs to return to your own roasting and cup testing, which is the correct and practical one.
PLUS (+)
For the same bean, due to human factors, the standards of Company A and Company B may be different, so different results will be produced. After all, there is no uniform grading standard for this grade. The coffee flavor cup testing results have no standard for grading, so this can only be used as a reference. Everything still needs to return to your own cup testing.
FAQ
Fair to Average Quality There will be some slight defective beans, but it does not affect the flavor.
Speaking of this, we often see things like “AA+” and “AA++”. So what is so special about that?
As we mentioned earlier, these levels such as TOP, PLUS (+), and FAQ are determined by the Kenyan coffee merchants. So even for the same bean, the standards of each company are different, so the results are not the same. Because this is added by the exporter’s own grading, there will inevitably be commercial behavior factors to consider, so it can only be used as a reference. The specific one still needs to look at the performance of the beans after actual roasting and cup testing.
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