Kenyan Coffee

Kenyan coffee production is known for some of the most meticulous at-scale processing that can be found anywhere.

Firstly, bright white parchment, nearly perfectly sorted by density and bulk conditioned at high elevations is commonplace. Secondly, Kenyan processing is a matter of pride even for managers who prefer drinking Kenya’s tea to its coffee. Thirdly, ample water supply is available in the central growing regions.

This has historically allowed factories to wash, and soak, and wash their coffees again entirely with fresh, cold river water.

However, that being said, conservation is becoming key in certain places. Above all, this is happening in the drier areas where water, due to climate change, cannot be as taken for granted. But elsewhere too. For the most part Kenya continues to thoroughly wash and soak its coffees according to tradition.

Subsequently, the established milling and sorting by grade, or bean size, is a longstanding tradition and positions them well for roasters, by tightly controlling the physical preparation and creating a diversity of profiles from a single processing batch.

How does it taste?

To sum up the cup, this Kenya coffee has a flavor profile that is citrusy, bright, & and clean. All this while also possessing a strong sweetness, classic black tea base, spice, and pleasant complexity.

This early offering has such a ripe, fruited, & sweet aroma in the grinds. We taste plumcot and grapefruit, accented by mulling spices, ginger, and tropical tartness. Aspects of raw sugars are a bit more potent in the wet aroma, and culminate a steam infused with cinnamon-spiced sugar, demerara, and a red raisin note.

The cup is versatile being both fruit-forward and grabby accompanied by the spiced sugar sweetness. It is yielding some really interesting flavor profiles across multiple brew methods. The sweetness has unrefined sugar sparkles with a sprinkling of cinnamon and clove that make a positive impact on the brewed coffee once its cooled down.

It is pretty well-integrated with the flavors we expect from a Kenyan coffee.

kenya aa coffee dring in the sun on raised bes at kiamugumo.

Kenyan coffee drying on raised african beds in parchment.

Meru County and the Katheri Farmers Cooperative Society

Meru county is one of the counties surrounding Mt. Kenya. It’s vast, and because it’s on the north side of the mountain, it has a different coffee harvest pattern from the better-known Kirinyaga, Embu, and Nyeri counties to the south. April-July is considered Kenya’s fly crop period, and although production is slightly lower, qualities often rival the main harvest months of October-December. Katheri Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS) is a coop affiliated with KCCE, a group that Royal does a lot of business with and admires for their farmer-centric business model.

Welcome to Meru County

Mt. Kenya, at the helm of Kenya’s Central Province, is the second tallest peak on the continent of Africa and a commanding natural presence. The mountain itself is a single point inside a vast and surreal thicket of ascending national forest and active game protection communities. The central counties of Kenya extend from the center of the national park, like five irregular pie slices, with their points meeting at the peak of the mountain. Meru, on the north side of the mountain, takes up a very wide slice of the highlands and extends far eastward. Because of the climate and high elevations throughout the county, it’s one of Kenya’s most agriculturally productive. This includes coffee—Meru is one of the leading coffee-producing counties in the country.

Kenyan Coffee from the Katheri Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS)

Kenya’s coffee is dominated by a cooperative system of production, whose members vote on representation, marketing and milling contracts for their coffee, as well as profit allocation. Typically, multiple coops are managed under a structure known as a Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS). Katheri Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS) oversees the operations of all four cooperatives (Coffee Factories) including Gichugene, Kinjo, Riiji, and Kijiione.

In this part of Kenya, farms look very much the same as elsewhere. Farmers typically have 200 trees apiece. Meru is surrounded by high elevation national parks on multiple sides (Meru National Park is to the east), which contribute cold nighttime temperatures, rich soils, and fresh ground water.

KCCE – Farmer-centric exporting

Katheri Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS) is one of the member societies of the Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters (KCCE) organization. KCCE is an historic organization of almost 4,000 individual cooperatives. The group was formed in 2009, with the express goal of managing marketing and exporting operations cooperatively, as opposed to contractually with third parties.

The economics of smallholder systems are consistently difficult everywhere in the world, and in Kenya in particular the number of individual margins sliced off an export price before payment reaches the actual farms is many, leaving only a small percentage to support coffee growth itself. And most often this arrives many months after harvest. KCCE, by managing more of the value chain itself, can capture a greater margin on behalf of the farms.

Wet or “Washed” Processing

Firstly, as cherry comes to Gichugene factory it is hand-sorted on intake to eliminate any imperfections and then weighed and logged under the contributing farmer’s name.
Secondly, cherry is blended and depulped, and then fermented in water for 12-16 hours.
Once fermentation is complete, the parchment is scrubbed with fresh water and moved to raised beds for drying. The drying phase is typically 28 days for the coffee to reach 10-12% humidity.
Once the coffee is fully dried parchment is rested in large, perforated bins on site, a process that allows the bean’s internal moisture to stabilize for the long transit and shelf life ahead.