SL28

SL28 produces one of the most distinctive cups in coffee, and it arrives with a provenance story that may not be true.

The story, and the problem with it

SL28 was selected at Scott Laboratories in Kenya in the 1930s from trees recorded as French Mission – which is to say, Bourbon brought by missionaries. That account is repeated in essentially every variety guide.

Genetic work has suggested that SL28 and SL34 both sit closer to Typica than to Bourbon. If that holds, the French Mission account describes the wrong parent.

We record this as contested. It is not settled, and pretending otherwise in either direction would be the same failure. What is worth carrying away is narrower: a lineage story attached to a famous selection is a story, and testing outranks it.

What it does in the cup

Blackcurrant, a dense phosphoric acidity, and a syrupy weight that survives being brewed badly. It needs altitude to do it, and it is susceptible to leaf rust, which is why Kenya has spent decades breeding replacements that mostly do not cup like it.

Qualifications on the record

Parentage

Selected at Scott Laboratories, Kenya, from material recorded as French Mission (i.e. Bourbon). Genetic testing has placed SL28 and SL34 nearer Typica, which would make that record wrong.

Typical cup

Blackcurrant, dense phosphoric acidity, heavy syrupy body. The backbone of the profile most people mean when they say a coffee tastes Kenyan.

What “Declared only” means here

Nobody has tested it. This is the normal state of almost every coffee sold.

Origins where it is recorded