It has something truly addictive: a mix of ripe mango and deep sweetness that brings to mind a tropical juice, with a hint of dried blueberry adding depth.
Mandarin comes through bright and juicy, while honey rounds everything out with a smooth, enveloping texture. It’s an expressive yet clean coffee, with a slightly indulgent edge that makes it incredibly easy to drink—and one you’ll keep coming back to.
STORY
This coffee comes from Ainamoi, in the Kericho region of western Kenya—an area traditionally known more for tea than coffee. At around 1,700 meters above sea level, coffee grows in small family plots, often alongside other crops that support farmers’ daily livelihoods. It’s a very different context from Kenya’s more established coffee regions, and precisely because of that, full of untapped potential.
Behind this lot is Sidney Kibet, founder of Lot20—a project born from curiosity, intuition, and persistence. His connection to coffee didn’t come from family tradition, but from a growing interest that started with drinking coffee and evolved into roasting and exporting. After spending time in Rwanda and working with coffee in different contexts, he returned to Kenya to build something of his own, starting almost from scratch.
The early days were challenging. Without contacts or infrastructure, Sidney began by working directly with roasters, selling his coffee in a very hands-on way. That approach—improvised at first—ended up shaping the philosophy of Lot20: operating outside traditional systems and creating more direct, transparent connections between origin and destination.
Today, Lot20 works with hundreds of smallholder farmers in western Kenya, buying cherry directly and paying on the spot—something still uncommon in the local context. This model not only improves farmers’ financial stability, but also gives them greater visibility and control over their coffee. There’s also a clear effort to bring the coffee back to origin as a finished cup, helping producers experience the final result of their work and strengthening their connection to it.
All of this results in coffees that stand out not only for their cup profile, but for what they represent: a different way of understanding Kenyan coffee—more open, more experimental, and focused on the long term.
VARIETAL AND PROCESS
This lot is a blend of classic Kenyan varieties such as SL28 and SL34, alongside Ruiru 11 and Batian, which bring structure, acidity, and a solid foundation for developing complex profiles. In this region, it’s also common to find quite heterogeneous farms, where different varieties coexist in small plots—adding even more diversity to the final cup.
The process is an anaerobic natural, where whole cherries ferment in sealed tanks for around 96 hours. In this case, a specific wine yeast is used to enhance tropical esters and push the profile towards a more fruit-forward and expressive character. Oxygen levels are carefully controlled throughout fermentation to maintain clarity and precision.
After fermentation, the coffee is slowly dried on raised beds over several weeks. This gradual drying helps stabilize the beans and lock in the aromatic compounds developed during fermentation.
The result is a very juicy coffee, with clearly defined fruit, a clean sweetness, and a bright yet balanced acidity—where the process adds complexity without compromising clarity.
RECIPE
We use 18 grams of ground coffee and 306 grams of final water at 93 ºC. We perform three pours. The first one is 54 grams, we wait 45 seconds, and then we perform two pours of 126 grams for a total time of 2’22”
