Origins
Why here
Three things have to line up, and the map is where they do. Coffee needs a frost-free band around the equator, steady rain, and nothing much above 22°C. It needs height, because a cherry that ripens slowly makes a denser, more complex bean. And it does best on volcanic ground: young soil, deep and free-draining, holding the minerals the tree wants. Almost every bag on this shelf came from where all three meet.
coffee / where-it-grows →Reading the map
The climate. Frost-free and wet enough, wandering either side of the dashed tropics.
The soil. A seam where two plates meet, leaving ground that is young, deep and mineral-rich.
The overlap. Right climate on right soil, and most of the world’s best coffee.
The height. Cooler air slows the cherry, and a slow cherry is a denser bean.
In the cupboard
Kii
Kirinyaga, Kenya · Pilot Coffee Roasters
“Brilliant for the first two minutes. Then it cooled, and the acidity turned sour on me.”
7.0/10
The shelf
Everything I have finished, newest first. 2 bags from 2 countries since Sep 2026.
Intensity, not quality. A low number is a different coffee, not a worse one.
- Kii, Kirinyaga, Kenya. Washed, 1,600–1,900 m. Flavour citrus. Rated 7.0 out of 10.
- Ana Sora, Guji, Oromia, Ethiopia. Natural, 1,900–2,350 m. Flavour strawberry. Rated 9.4 out of 10.
How this works
A bag lasts one to two weeks. When it is finished the next one takes the top of this page and the old one moves down to the shelf, where it stays. Nothing gets deleted. The map fills up as the shelf does, one dot per origin, larger where I have been back. The rating is mine. The profile is six axes of character rather than a score, and it is the same six every time, so after a year it should be obvious what I actually reach for.