Kenya - Gakuyuini

Gakuyuini is a factory sitting on the slopes of Mount Kenya, and takes advantage of the fertile volcanic soil in this area, and the altitudes ranging from 1600 - 1700 meters above sea level.
The factory is only 1.5 hours from Nairobi, demonstrating just how close the typical coffee growing areas of Kenya are to the city. The membership here is quite spread between male and females, with 674 female farmers and 879 male farmers.

Varietals: The smallholders mainly have SL 28, SL 34, and Ruiru 11.

Grade: AA, AB and PB refers to the bean size.

Production process: Cherries are hand sorted for unripe and overripe cherries by the farmers before they go into production. A disc pulping machine removes the skin and pulp. The coffees are graded by density into 3 grades by the pulp­er. Grade 1 and 2 go separately to fermentation. Grade 3 is considered a low grade.

The coffee is fermented for 16-24 hours under closed shade. After fermentation, the coffees are washed and again graded by density in wash­ing channels and are then soaked under clean water from the Gatomboya stream for 16-18 hours.

Drying: Sun dried up to 21 days on African drying beds. Coffees are covered in plas­tic during midday and at night.