Make no mistake; If you like your espresso big, bold and fruity LONDINIUM espresso’s current Kenyan will leave you humming with pleasure over your morning brew.
This is not an espresso to quaff, its flavour is insistent and strong and will stay on your palate for quite a while after the last drop is gone.
It’s a tricky bean to master.
I opened my first bag at about 14 days post-roast, what I’d consider to be spot-on for most roasts and approximated my grind settings accordingly. I’m not yet using a LONDINIUM I lever espresso machine, so based on my previous experience with LONDINIUM beans I dropped the temperature a couple of degrees.
The result was a fairly ordinary brew, prone to gushing 30ml through the portafilter in about ten seconds. After quite a few sink shots, I finally arrived at the configuration that nailed the flavour profile.
Once you’ve found it with this bean, you won’t be in any doubt whether you’ve got it right or not.
Your mileage may vary, but what worked for me was a tighter than usual ristretto grind and upping the temperature by about 3 degrees over my standard setting. I won’t quote absolute numbers (I don’t believe that a PID gives me absolutes) but the combination of those two changes made all the differences.
Suddenly my mouth was awash with grapefruit. A tangy, fruity fullness that maintained its flavour for at least 30 minutes after drinking it. There were also hints of aniseed. The mouthfeel was neither thin nor syrupy, but somewhere in the middle and a medium body.
And the crema… I’ve never seen anything quite like it – rich and red like great Australian growing soil, it flowed beautifully into the cup and provided the anticipated tiger-mottling effect.
Milk drinkers also seem to get a far better deal than you’d expect with such a fruity brew. More than a few latte drinking guests uttered a “Wow!” on first sip – a better result than the usual polite compliments.
I don’t even attempt latte art, but it’s easy to see how solidly the crema holds together even in this oversized pour:
In short, if you’re a lover of African beans then you should rise to the challenge of this bean.