Grumpy Mule Tanzania Footprint Peaberry Coffee

  "Intense yet refined in character, this is a real coffee lover’s dream. The fragrance is lively and buttery, with winey blackcurrant flavours leading to an almost liquorice like, lasting finish. Great for breakfast or indeed any time of day. Best suited to cafetières, filters and percolators. We’ve chosen a unique lot of “peaberries”, where the two beans usually found within a coffee cherry have fused into one – these are then separated at the milling stage and batched together. The taste is more intense and very fragrant. Another of East Africa’s most distinguished coffee plantations, the Blackburn Estate is owned and managed by passionate husband and wife team Michael and Tina Gehrken. It can be found on the western slopes of Mount Oldeani in Northern Tanzania, an idyllic farm gazing down on the wide valley below. Being located near to the scenic Ngorongoro conservation area, both elephants and water buffalo are frequent “trespassers” on the estate. The huge elephant footprint Ian found one morning during his visit has inspired the name of this exceptional coffee. They’d actually taken an overnight liking to one of the estates underground water pipes and had impressively excavated it to create a spontaneous watering hole! The attention to harvesting and processing detail on this estate is incredible, resulting in a wide selection of micro-lots, from the different zones of the farm, that each have their own subtle nuances and aromas. Pickers select only the very ripest cherries from the historic Bourbon and Kent Arabica coffee trees, many of which were first planted in 1931. The cherries are pulped and the coffee fermented in the cool, overnight conditions before being carefully washed the next morning ready to be sun-dried on shaded nets. All stages are meticulously controlled and monitored. To this day, Ian still maintains that this is the best coffee farm he’s yet visited."