Kenya - Kii AA

The Kenyan Agriculture and Food Authority has recognized the Rung’eto Farmers Cooperative Society as a top performer in terms of production volume and price paid to its member farmers. This signifies the cooperative’s capacity for efficient and quality-driven practices as a way to increase the value of their affiliated farmers’ coffee and compensate them accordingly.

They operate three wet mills in one of the country’s most known coffee-growing zones, Kirinyaga county in Central Kenya, also known as the Mount Kenya region. The county is extensively forested, rich in volcanic soil, and has moderate temperatures year-round. These beneficial conditions give way to coffee trees that yield denser cherries with the potential for diverse flavors. There is also consistent government support for coffee farmers in the form of training and access to farm inputs.

Generations of farmers in this locality predominantly grow SL 28 and SL 34 varieties, as they had been working with coffee before the popularization of cultivars Ruiru 11 and Batian. The Kii Coffee Factory is one of the three Rung’eto Cooperative wet mills providing processing services to the smallholder farmers in its vicinity.

SL 28 and SL 34 are the traditional varieties cultivated in the country since the early 1900s. They have the potential for high cup quality and high yields, but also highly vulnerable to adverse elements. The AA-grade indicates this coffee is of the highest quality, determined by the beans’ size and density according to the regulations governing the Kenyan coffee trade.

It is a long held belief that the washed process fully unmasks a coffee’s authentic character allowing the consumer to taste variety and terroir. It is still the norm for post-harvest processing at the cooperative-run coffee factories in Kenya. Selectively handpicked ripe cherries are further sorted for defects before being sent into pulping, which removes the skin and pulp from the seed. Residual mucilage is then removed through fermentation in tanks, followed by washing to scrub off any remaining traces of mucilage, and a soak.

This lot from the Kii wet mill was fermented in ambient temperature for approximately 24 hours, and washed using clean water from the Kii River, followed by a 12-hour soak. By this step, the coffee seeds in parchment would have a moisture level of around 55%. This will be reduced to 10-12% by laying them out to dry on raised beds under the sun for approximately 14 days.

Kenyan coffee is memorable for many specialty coffee lovers because it is generally fragrant, clean, juicy, complex, and also fuller-bodied, which is uncommon in most other fully washed coffees.