Gathaithi AA - Kenya (250g)

Blackberry | Blood Orange | Lime

Farmer: 1117 Smallholders
Country: Kenya
Region: Nyeri (Green province on map)
Variety: SL-28, SL-34, Ruiru 11 & Batian
Process:  Washed

Gathaithi Factory is operated by Gathaithi Farmers Cooperative Society, which has more than 1,100 active members, who farm on about 143 hectares of land in the area.

Farmers will bring their cherry to the factory, where it is weighed and put into the hopper with the rest of that day’s collection. (The farmer is given a receipt for the value of the coffee.) The coffee is depulped using one of two types of equipment: A single-disc depulper, which directs all of the coffee into a single fermentation tank, or a pre-grader/multi-disc depulper, which uses multiple water tanks to pre-sort the coffees by density before and after the depulping, which allows the smaller grades to be depulped again as needed. The single-disc depulping is more common at estates than at the factories.

Factories will ferment every grade of parchment coffee dry in its mucilage for 24–48 hours, then move the coffee through water channels to separate washing tanks, where the softened mucilage is sloughed off. Premium AA lots are sometimes sent to holding takes to be submerged underwater for an additional 24 hours.

The tanks are drained, and the coffee is given a quick “pre-dry,” or “skin dry,” laid out in full sunlight in thin layers on raised beds for about six hours; this is to prevent the parchment from cracking. The beans are then moved to raised beds where they are spread in thicker layers, and allowed to dry for 7–10 days. The coffee is typically dried to 11–12% moisture.

All this consistent and conscientious processing means that when brewing this coffee you’ll get lots of fruitiness, loads of sweetness and all the acidity necessary to produce a big, but balanced, cup.

As there is a lot of acidity if you extract less you’ll increase the perception of the citrus notes – moving the blood orange to ruby grapefruit and zesty lime. Higher extractions will increase the sweetness and body pushing the flavours more towards a blackberry jam and blood orange San Pelligrino!

Grind: If you need your coffee ground, select on the dropdown. Let us know in the "Special Instructions" if there is any other specific brew method you need the coffee ground for.