Kenya

ROAST: Med-Light

CUPPING NOTES: Bright Acidity, Orange, Lemon, Floral, Effervescent, Sweet Well Balanced
GRADE: AB
REGION: Othaya, Nyeri County
ALTITUDE: 1,700-1,890 M
PROCESS: Fully Washed and Sun Dried on Raised Beds
Varietals: SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11, and Batian
Certification: Conventional

Details: Othaya Farmer Cooperative Society is one of key member societies of the Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters (KCCE) organization. KCCE is an historic organization of almost 4,000 individual cooperatives. The group was formed in 2009, with the express goal of managing marketing and exporting operations cooperatively, as opposed to contractually with third parties. This lot is processed in Gauge.

The Gatugi Factory has 500 members actively harvesting and delivering to the processing center. 
Gatugi ferments for 27-35 hours depending on ambient conditions. After fermentation, the parchment is rinsed and the water replenished, and the clean parchment soaks for an additional 12 hours, after which it is sorted by density and brought to the tables to dry, typically for two weeks. After drying is complete the coffee is stored on site and eventually delivered to the Othaya dry mill for grading and a final density sort.

The established milling and sorting by grade, or bean size, is a longstanding tradition and positions Kenya coffees well for roasters, by tightly controlling the physical preparation and creating a diversity of profiles from a single processing batch. The average member of Gatugi is farming enough coffee fruit for roughly two 60kg bags of export-able green.