Gerald prepared this single-bucket lot for us this year with the goal of perfectly uniform cherry selection. The result is a very big, fully tropical fruit-forward profile with an almost sticky sweetness and excellent acidity.
SL*
Kirinyaga
1,950 masl
November 2025
Hand-picked at peak ripeness. Floated and hand-sorted to further remove defects. De-pulped on the day of harvest. Mixed to ensure uniform distribution. Dry-fermented for 36 hours in a single bucket. Hand-sorted. Dried on raised beds until moisture content reaches 10.5%.
ABOUT GERALD NJAGI
Gerald Njagi is a third-generation coffee producer who began his own farm by leasing his first 100 trees in 2011. Today, he manages much of the Kambarare estate and oversees all post-harvest processing. Gerald’s family now owns a total of 1,000 trees and continues to build on a legacy of quality coffee production. Over the years, Gerald has become one of our closest collaborators and most trusted producers—helping lead processing experiments while consistently producing some of the highest-scoring coffees we taste from Kenya.
ABOUT RETRO 1984
This is the first year of Retro 1984—a collaborative project between Peter Mbature, Tim Hill, and SEY, born from years of conversations and a shared concern about the declining quality of Kenyan coffees. This effort is an active step toward asking better questions and conducting meaningful experiments to help revive the flavor profiles we all once knew and loved. The name Retro 1984 references the year just before the introduction of the hybrid variety Ruiru 11 in Kenya. At its core, this project is about returning to SL variety separations and exploring their full potential. We believe deeply in the future of Kenyan coffee, and this is one of the most exciting projects we have ever been a part of—driven by our enduring love for these profiles.
ABOUT SL*
We believe this lot from Kambarare is composed entirely of SL34. However, recent genetic testing on other farms has begun to challenge long-held assumptions about which varieties are actually being cultivated in Kenya. This remains an ongoing research project, and we will share more as the story unfolds!
Pricing Details
FARM GATE (USD; GREEN)
$30.00/KG
DDP
$35.86/KG
The cost of getting a coffee from cherry to beverage varies enormously depending on its place of origin and the location of its consumption. The inclusion of price transparency is a starting point to inform broader conversation around the true costs of production and the sustainability of specialty coffee as a whole.