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Beans: Geralds Estate, SL28, SL34, washed, Nyeri, Kenya.
Shop: Van Gulpen, Emmerich, Germany.
Van Gulpen – Background information.
The city of Emmerich, Germany, hosts one of the oldest coffee roasters in the world: Van Gülpen Coffee Roasters, roasters of the Geralds Estate coffee.
This coffee company was founded in 1832 and is the oldest family-run roastery in the world. At the moment they have the 6th family generation at the roastery and of course they are proud of this. Above all else they are also a modern and progressive roasting plant with a preference for modern coffees, a great interest in the latest findings and processes and a strong need for new impulses and ideas. And so the old always meets the new. On the one hand, coffee knowledge is passed on from generation to generation. On the other hand, they always question themselves and constantly follow the desire to improve their coffee.
The Gerald’s Estate is the very first single farm coffee that Van Gulpen has bought from Kenya. The farm is owned by Gerald, his eight sons and their respective wife’s. Together they grow their coffee on six different farms that cover 27 acres in total. Gerald has his own wet mill that he uses for processing the coffee all the way. It starts with sorting, depulping fermenting, washing and finally drying the cherrie’s. Gerald has chosen not to use any pesticides and to put a lot of effort into the care for the plants water and animals that live on and around the farms. This particular coffee was grown at 1800 meters above sea level and was harvested in September 2019.
Geralds Estate: opening the package.
Van Gülpen packs their coffees in a carton package with a coffee bag inside. The outside is grey and the color of the label signifies the origin of the coffee. In this case the color is a beautiful burgundy red.
On the front you will see the Van Gülpen logo and the name and origin of the coffee. On the side you will find the history of the roastery in German and English. This clearly states the international nature of this roastery.
The back of the package has some amazingly beautiful art. In this case you will see a drawing of a piece of jungle or forest but in this case you get the right half of the head of a lion. The art is truly beautiful and must have been hard to create. The bottom shows the roasting date and that is not all!
Inside the package you will see a small card on which you will see information about the region, location, altitude, producer, variety, processing and tasting notes.
On the back of the card, Van Gülpen gives information on the coffee in more detail. Think about the family of the farm of the coffee and other important information. It really gives you the feeling that you know where the coffee comes from. The package inside has a degassing valve but no ziplock.
When eating a bean there is a soft fruity hint that is quickly covered by a tea like flavour. Later on, there is a sour salty flavour coming up. The ground coffee smelled fruity with hints of wood and whole gain. Let’s brew!
The tasting.
Like always I used my Eureka Brew-Pro grinder for this filter coffee. Brewing the coffee on the V60, Aeropress and Siphon gave a clear opinion on this Kenyan coffee. There was a clear difference in results on the Aeropress and V60 but both were nice in their own way. The Aeropress gave a more vanilla and lime oriented brew, the V60 covered a more overall palette.
When brewing this coffee you will get a mix of somewhat dark aroma’s. Sage and a woody note can be found pretty easily, but this will change when you pour it in a glass and the brew cools down. As soon as the brew cools down, you will notice how vanilla is taking over the palette. You will also notice how the black tea note pops up as well. This in turn creates a sugared vanilla tea fragrance on the nose.
When you take your first sip and slurp oxygen inside your mouth, there is a lime mouthfeel to the coffee. The flavours that you will experience are that of sage. a very faint cedar wood together with an arugula bitter note. Swallowing the brew will add a note of pepper kernel (not the spiciness, just the flavour). Before you might think that this is the flavour palette, take another sip and be surprised. The previous flavours will now only be the foundation of the coffee while the black tea and vanilla pop up forcefully. The arugula note is gone and a soft, sweet, floral vanilla takes over completely as well as a mix of earl grey and black tea. The mouthfeel now feels satin soft and the acidity is citric on a medium strength.
When swallowing the coffee, the aftertaste has, yet again, a lot of vanilla. There is also a hint of sage, and the dryness that accompanies this flavour, that lingers. A couple of moments later, the black pepper kernel flavour remains in the back of your mouth before it dissipates.
Geralds Estate: The verdict.
Van Gulpen has roasted a non-generic Kenya with the Geralds Estate. The two sides of this coffee are surprising and the best part is how the vanilla flavour is dominant in the coffee after a sip of two.
The bitterness that you might perceive is gone when the coffee cools down and turns into a natural sweetness. The medium acidity feels good and ensures that you can drink this coffee at anytime of the day without giving that ‘full stomach’ sensation which might happen with high acidity coffee’s.