Burundi Nemba Natural (2020) – Kickapoo Coffee Roasters

Kickapoo Coffee Roasters is a great roaster based in Wisconsin that only roasts organic & environmentally friendly coffee. They’ve been a favorite of mine for awhile and this is one of the few coffees I’ve had the opportunity to review before. I loved it last year, so it was quick to add it to my Crema.co playlist when I saw it come back in 2020.

I didn’t look at my review from last year until after I finished my notes with this year’s coffee. While much of my assessment was the same between the coffees, the aroma was one of the biggest differences. Last year I found the aroma to be lacking and likely the most disappointing attribute of the coffee. This time around, I thought the aroma was amazing. It was strong, lively, very sweet and reminded me of honeycrisp apples. In the flavor I tasted crisp, fruity, juicy notes of kiwi and apple. As the coffee cooled, the flavor got even sweeter and I tasted various berry notes. The body was light & lively and the coffee had a great, fruity sweetness throughout. The acidity crescendoed throughout each sip and ended in the lingering finish. There was a nice layering of flavors, though not a ton of evolution from beginning to end. As always with naturally processed coffees, I think this one shown best in pour over brew methods, but it was quite tasty as an espresso where the juicy sweetness shown through.

The Bottom Line

This was one of my favorite coffees of 2019 and it delivered again in 2020. It was bright, fruity, sweet and juicy and has been a treat to experiment with over the past few weeks.