KIMU MONTHLY NEWSLETTER: OCTOBER 2026 EDITION
Something's brewing at KIMU. This month we're pouring a bright, wine-like peaberry from the misted highlands of Nyeri, Kenya, with a simple cinnamon honey coffee to warm you up.
☕ Coffee Culture: What Makes a Peaberry a Peaberry?
Most coffee cherries grow two flat-sided seeds pressed against each other, the beans you're used to seeing. Every so often, a cherry develops only one seed instead. With nothing to flatten it, that single seed grows small and rounded, almost like a little pea. That's a peaberry, and it isn't a variety or a farm technique. It's closer to a natural mutation, showing up in maybe 5 to 10 percent of any harvest.
Because peaberries are shaped differently than regular beans, they roast differently too, so most mills sort them out and sell them separately rather than blending them back in. Some in the industry treat that separation as just quality control. Others insist peaberries cup out sweeter and more concentrated, since all of the cherry's flavor compounds funneled into one seed instead of splitting across two.
Either way, they're a small percentage of any lot, which is part of why they're treated as something worth setting aside.
🍂 Recipe: Cozy Cinnamon Honey Coffee
This month's Kenya is bright on its own, so we kept the recipe simple. Just a few pantry staples to make it feel like fall.
• 2 tbsp KIMU Kenya, regular drip grind
• 3/4 cup water, brewed strong (drip or pour-over)
• 1 tbsp honey
• 1/4 tsp cinnamon
• Splash of milk or cream, if you like
Brew the Kenya as a strong regular drip or pour-over. Stir the honey and cinnamon into the mug, pour the hot coffee over, and stir until the honey dissolves. Add a splash of milk if you like it creamy. That's it. Simple, warm, and easy to make on repeat.
🌍 Origin Spotlight: Nyeri County, Kenya
This coffee comes from approximately 500 smallholder producers who deliver their coffee cherries to the Gura Factory in Kenya's renowned Nyeri County. It's grown between 1,700 and 1,890 meters in mineral-rich volcanic soil, and brings together some of Kenya's most respected coffee varieties: SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11, and Batian.
At the Gura Factory, freshly harvested cherries are carefully fermented, washed, soaked, and sorted by density before being slowly dried on raised beds for two to three weeks. That meticulous process is what gives high-elevation Kenyan coffees their clarity, vibrant acidity, and layered fruit character.
This lot's peaberries were separated out during sorting for their small, rounded shape and concentrated, lively cup. Five hundred farmers, one factory, and a whole lot of care in the drying beds. That's what's in your cup this month.
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