Side by side comparison

Kenya and Rwanda

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First originSecond origin

Sensory Contrast at a Glance

Sweetness

Kenya●●●●

Rwanda●●●●

Sparkle & Acidity

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Rwanda●●●●

Body & Weight

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Rwanda●●●

Sensory Radar Overlay

Kenya
Rwanda

Relative to this catalog, not SCA scores.

Metric	Kenya	Rwanda
Summary	Punchy and juicy: blackcurrant, grapefruit, and a syrupy sweetness. Not a gentle starter, but vivid if you like bright fruit.	A washed Bourbon cup: floral, citrus, red fruit, and brown sugar. High East African slopes, not a Kenyan blackcurrant bomb.
Tasting notes	blackcurrant, grapefruit, tomato leaf, brown sugar, black tea	floral, citrus, red fruit, brown sugar, tea-like sweetness
Who grows it	Smallholder cooperatives delivering to named factories (wet mills).	Hundreds of thousands of smallholders delivering cherry to washing stations.
Producers in detail	A typical Nyeri or Kirinyaga lot is hundreds of families, each with a small plot, delivering cherry to a factory owned by a Farmer Cooperative Society. Factory names (Gichathaini, Gititu, Karimikui) are the producer credit. Estates exist around Kiambu; central-highland sparkle more often comes from the co-op system.	The picture is 400,000 smallholdings, not large estates. Families pick cherry and deliver it to a washing station. The station - not a single farm name - is the producer credit on most specialty bags. That post-1994 mill network is why washed Rwanda exists as a shopper category.
Terroir	Volcanic slopes of Mount Kenya: red nitisols, high altitude, two rainy seasons. The coffee belt sits under forest reserve. That geology plus the double-wash protocol is why Kenya does not taste like a washed Colombia even when both are “washed Arabica.”	Volcanic highlands and garden plots rather than estate rows. Banana and coffee often share the same slope. Cool elevation plus fully washed Bourbon is the terroir: florals and citrus, a medium body, brown-sugar sweetness. It is not a wet-hulled or natural-default origin.
Process	Typically double-washed, then soaked, then dried on raised beds.	Specialty lots are fully washed at a washing station.
Process in detail	Kenya’s factories pulp cherry, ferment, wash in channels that also grade by density, then soak parchment in clean water for another 12–24 hours. That second soak is the “Kenya wash” - it strips residual pulp and is why the cup is so clean and loud. AA, AB, and PB are screen sizes, not farms.	Cherry goes to a washing station, is pulped, fermented, washed, and dried - often on raised beds. That fully washed path is the specialty default. It is how smallholders turned garden cherry into an export grade after stations were rebuilt.
Brew tag	Filter	Filter
Bag cue	Look for Kenya, Nyeri or Kirinyaga, blackcurrant, AA if listed.	Look for Rwanda, washed, Bourbon or red fruit - floral citrus, not Kenya blackcurrant.
Cafe order	A Kenya, Nyeri or Kirinyaga, light roast, black - the blackcurrant one.	A washed Rwanda, light roast, black - floral, citrus, red fruit.
Milk	Black	Black
Species	arabica	arabica
Altitude (light)	High-grown - often 1,600–2,000m	Highland specialty lots - typically 1,400–2,000m
Altitude (detail)	Nyeri and Kirinyaga lots typically sit 1,600–2,000m on volcanic red clay. Mount Kenya and the Aberdares shape rainfall into two wet seasons and two harvests. Cool nights plus volcanic soil are the structural reason Kenyan acidity reads as currant rather than simple lemon.	Specialty lots typically grow about 1,400–2,000m on volcanic highlands. That is a trade band, not a census of every farm. Cool nights at that height are why washed Bourbon can taste floral and citrus rather than heavy cocoa.
Varieties	SL28, SL34; Batian and Ruiru 11 on newer lots	Red Bourbon (when labeled)
Harvest	Main crop roughly October–December; fly crop around April–June.	Main harvest roughly March–July.
Brew rec	Pour-over, plenty of water (1:16 or 1:17) so currant stays juicy instead of sharp. Light roast only.	Pour-over, light roast, black. Plenty of water so citrus stays sweet. Do not treat it as a Kenya AA substitute - the fruit is redder and the body is lighter.