Beskrivning
Flavour notes: Dark cherries, currants, aromatic
The Gathaithi Co-operative wet mill is located in Nyeri in Central Kenya. Nyeri is known for coffees with intense, complex, and flavor-dense cup profiles. Gathaithi has around 1250 member farmers who deliver coffee from 800 farms in the area. Most farms only have around 200-300 trees and the coffee production is part of their income. The varieties they grow are generally SL, with a small amount of Ruiru 11.The soil in this area is mainly Nitisol. Nitisols occur in highlands and on volcanic steep slopes. The soil developed from volcanic rocks and have better chemical and physical properties than other tropical soils.
There is a lot of competition in Nyeri. Many of the farmers are surrounded by several wetmills. They are free to choose where they want to deliver their cherries as members. Due to the traditional auction system in Kenya, quality is rewarded with higher prices. The better factories will then attract more farmers by producing coffee getting the highest prices, as well as giving high payback rate to the farmers. This can in some cases be about 90% of the sales price after cost of marketing and preparation is deducted. A typical wet mill can have about 1000 farmers delivering cherries. They give a small advance payment at delivery. The better and well-managed wet mills are able to give more than 85% of the sales price back to the farmers. That’s after cost of milling and marketing is deducted.
The farmers each bring their own cherries to the cooperative. The cherries are hand sorted for unripes and overripes by the farmers themselves before they go into production. A 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 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. When ready, the coffee is sundried for up to 21 days on African drying beds. Coffees are covered in plastic during midday and at night.
