The heart of Kenya coffee production and quality is concentrated in south-central Kenya, between Mt. Kenya and the capital, Nairobi. The equator passes right over the Mt. Kenya area.

The great coffees grow in stream-fed hills gently rising from the 4,500 foot central Kenya plain. The area extends from Nairobi, in the south, along the eastern edge of the Aberdare mountains to the southern slopes of Mt. Kenya. Nairobi is about 75 miles south of Mt. Kenya. The coffee quality-producing districts are: Kiambu, Thika, Murang'a, Nyeri and Kirinyaga

I was the guest of C Dorman Ltd., a Kenya exporting company specializing in the finest qualities. I have been working with them since the days of The Coffee Connection. This is one of their cupping labs.

This is C Dorman's main cupping lab. At the height of the coffee buying season several hundred coffees might be cupped in a single week. There are two cups for each coffee lot. Finer coffees may be roasted and cupped several times.

C Dorman warehouse & mill. Each bag of green coffee weighs 132 lbs.. These are coffees from the fly crop, harvested this summer. The main crop is harvested in November-December and produces the qualities that have made Kenya famous among coffee connoisseurs.

Gridlock in Nairobi, a common occurrence....

Metalware market on the road out of Nairobi.

Driving past coffee estates. At over 5,000 feet the land rolls gently.

Coffee estates can be quite large. They are much more productive than small farms but, as a general rule, produce lower quality. There are occasional exceptions! We had very fine coffee from Rioki Estate two years ago.

The Arabica coffee plant is self-pollinating.

Coffee cherries at Yadimi Estate have been picked and most unripes sorted out, seen here.

Over-ripe, ripe and still quite a few unripes sit in the receiving tank ready to be depulped. This will not make a great lot....

After being depulped, the beans are still coated with a thin layer of fruit called mucilage. They must ferment (the mucilage will rot, essentially) for up to 36 hours. Then turbulent water can wash away any fruit coating. If great care is not taken the odor of rotting fruit will be absorbed by the bean and coffee drinkers will taste it in their cups.

Next, the coffee is dried on racks. It had just been raining, so the coffees are still wrapped in plastic. Five minutes later it started to rain again. The main harvest is also the time of the "short rains" when mornings are often overcast and wet, giving way to partly cloudy intense sunshine in the afternoon. Kenya is right on the equator.

It takes 7 to 10 days for the beans to dry. Racks allow ventilation from below to even out and to quicken drying. The beans are protected from occasional rain by a plastic covering ,which can quickly be put over them or removed

Women lifting dried beans into conditioning bins above.

More estates as we return to Nairobi.

The next day we take off for Mamuto Farm in Kirinyaga. We descend very gently to 4,000 ft where there are rice fields.

Higher up again and nearing Mamuto Farm, with Mt. Kenya to the right.

Clear streams

Nearing Mamuto Farm we are back up around 5,000 feet. Mt Kenya, over 17,000 ft., looms before us.

Mamuto!

Walter Mathagu and his son Patrick who is taking over the farm. Walter was a colonel in the army; it shows! He is engaging, anxious to inform, direct, and carries himself with natural authority.

Depulping and two fermentation tanks are under the roof.

Once the beans are ready to be washed a stream of water from the faucets above the tanks carries the beans through a long concrete channel. Men will paddle the water opposite the flow, creating turbulence and thereby also separating beans by density. The denser coffees are better. They will go to the soaking tanks, seen at the far end, where they will stay another 24 hours.

Soaking removes all residual fruit.

Then the beans are dried.

It is the same material used to bag the coffees for transport but of a coarser weave for good bean ventilation while drying.

Ventilated conditioning bins. Beans will lose another 2 to 3 % moisture. There are four bins for four qualities.

The beans must not touch the walls or the ground! This largest bin is for the top quality. From drying racks to these bins the coffee will have been dried from 65% to around 10.5% moisture at which point it is stable.

Explaining the process.

In this section of Mamuto the cherries are reaching maturity.

Ripe coffee cherries

The importance of maintenance and fertilizing: neighbor's coffee plants on right.

At just a slightly higher elevation on Mamuto Farm the cherries are not ripe yet. Two more weeks...

Patrick Mathagu

Best $79 deal ever - with breakfast. Outspan Hotel, Nyeri.

A view of the countryside from Kangocho Factory in the Nyeri district.

At the Kangocho Cooperative Factory small farmers sort their cherries. Only ripe cherry should be pulped for the best quality.

Unripes and over-ripes are separated out.

The first cherries of the day go into the receiving tank from where they will drop through the outlet below to be depulped.

Coffee cherries are released out of the receiving tank. Recycled water (from the fermentation and washing still to come) carries them towards the pulper disks.

Floaters are poor quality and separated. Denser beans sink.

The beans are still coated in mucilage. Fermentation will allow easy removal with turbulent water.

The beans go into the fermentation tank.

The fermentation tanks are under the blue roof. The beans will stay in one set of tanks overnight, for twelve hours. The next day they are washed with clean water, with wooden paddles and bare feet, and then rinsed and moved with clean water to a second row of fermentation tanks, also under the roof and just below the first set of tanks. They will stay there the rest of the day and that night (24 hours) and then be washed again, this time in concrete channels (next photo). After this second more thorough washing the beans will once again go into a tank, further below and without a roof, where they will soak in very pure water for 24 hours.

After being washed in the channel, the beans are soaked in very clean water for 24 hours or more, removing all fruit residue.

Soaking tank. If there is a holdup at the drying racks the beans can remain here at least another day without losing quality, so long as the water is changed.

Blast from the past! Kangocho won 1st place in the Coffee Connection competition in 1993. I was the first to sign their guest book.

Scenes on the road: police inspections are fairly common. Would love to be in on the conversation!

Small farmers grow coffee (dark green) and tea (bright green) on slopes side by side.

This is Central Kenya Coffee Mills (CKCM), brand new and in the heart of coffee growing country.

CKCM prepares the coffee for market. It cleans parchment coffee of all foreign matter, then hulls away the parchment (skin), sorts the beans by size and by density and then bags them.

CKCM's cupping lab monitors quality. CKCM also offers agricultural supports for farmers. The introduction of such mills in coffee country and of competing services should help improve farmers' lives.

We pass by a cooperative small farmer coffee factory below - on the road. These "factories" dot the countryside. A single cooperative may have several such factories, each one within walking distance of those farmers who use it.

Tea and coffee fields.

Because of low world prices, past (hopefully) endemic corruption, and poor agricultural practices many farmers barely keep their trees alive. Today Kenya produces less than half what it did in 1988. Recent reforms are hopefully resuscitating the coffee sector.

Back in the 1980's, I believe, shade trees were removed from coffee farms in an effort to increase production. This may have worked for well funded estates but for small farmers it has been harmful, overall. Coffee trees without sufficient shade require far more fertilizer while soils are more prone to erosion. When farmers cannot afford these inputs production plummets. This is now being addressed.

Shade trees reduce the coffee trees' need for fertilizers and other costly inputs.

Kahindu Cooperative Factory. Two banks of fermentation tanks under roofs are seen here. People are hand sorting newly washed coffee beans at the drying racks. These "manicures" take place at every opportunity throughout the chain of transformations.

Agricultural diversity around Kahindu. Lowest grade coffees are visible at bottom right of this photo. The lowest grade is consumed at origin. Better exportable qualities are to the left.

Cooperative meeting. The discussions were lively.

Back to Nairobi!