GAKUYUINI — Kenya — Espresso

The smallholders mainly have the varieties SL 28, SL 34 and Ruiru 11. Cherries are hand sorted for unripes and overripes by the farmers before they go in to production. A disc pulping machine removes the skin and pulp. The coffees are graded by density in to 3 grades by the pulp­er. Grade 1 and 2 go separately to fermentation. Grade 3 is considered 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 for 16-18 hours. After soaking, the coffees are dried on hessian mesh mats for up to one day, then moved to the traditional drying tables. The coffee is normally dried on a surface of jute cloth or shade net layered over the table’s wire mesh.

The drying time varies between 12 and 20 days depending on weather and rainfall.

Gakuyuini is a factory sitting on the slopes of mount Kenya, and benefits from 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 factory has almost as many female members as male: 674 female farmers and 879 male farmers. Gakuyuini factory is a part of the Farmers Cooperative Society called Thirikwa, which is a group that has consistently achieved high prices for its coffees. They have been one of the factories to pay the best prices to farmers for the past five years.

This factory takes action for a more sustainable coffee production by recycling the water used for processing cherry and by distributing manure that can be used as fertiliser.