KENYA

KAINMUI - PEABERRY

PURPLE PLUM, LIME, VANILLA + COLA

BEAN DETAILS:

ORIGIN: Gichugu, Kirinyaga, Kenya
PRODUCER: Kainamui Factory
PROCESS: See Farm level below
TASTING NOTES: Purple plum, lime, vanilla, and cola. 
ROAST TYPE: Light

Farm Level

Kainamui Factory is situated in the Ngariama region of the Gichugu Division of Kirinyaga County. It was established in 1963, on the slopes of Mount Kenya. It has 2,000 members, 1,200 men and 800 women. These producers have very small farms, with an average of only 200 trees each.

Members handpick their coffee and deliver it to the wet mill for pulping. There, the flotation system separates dense beans from immature mbunis (floaters), letting the denser beans sink and the heavier ones flow through channels to the fermentation tank. This first stage of fermentation lasts about 24 hours, after which the beans are washed and sent to the secondary fermentation tank for 12-24 hours.

Once fermentation is complete, the beans enter the washing channels where floaters are separated further and the dense beans cleaned of mucilage. The washed beans then enter soaking tanks where they sit under clean water for another 24 hours. This soaking process allows amino acids and proteins in the cellular structure of each bean to develop, resulting in more acidity and complex fruit flavors—a quality that distinctively identifies Kenyan coffee.

The beans are initially laid on drying tables in a thin layer to lower moisture levels to around 50%. This first drying stage lasts about 6 hours before the beans are gathered and laid in thicker layers for the remaining 5-10 days of the drying period, where they're dried to shelf-stable moisture levels for export. The dry parchment is then delivered to a private mill and put to rest in "bodegas" (raised cells made of chicken wire to ensure the necessary air circulation).

Kainamui coffee factory has maintained an incredible level of production, both in terms of quality and quantity. However, there is a notable decline in its total production for the last 2 years, which may involve ecological factors among others.

In line with the rising awareness on environmental conservation, the factory has dug wastewater soak pits far from their water source where the waste water is allowed to soak in back to the soil. Though lacking a wastewater treatment plant, management actively encourages tree planting among its members.

Kainamui washing station is located in the buffer zone surrounding Mount Kenya National Park. Mount Kenya is an extinct volcano and the second highest snow-capped peak in Africa (5,199 masl), after Kilimanjaro. The presence of this snowy mountain in Kirinyaga (the name of which actually means "White Mountain" in the native Kikuyu language) plays a fundamental role for the population and coffee of the surrounding areas, feeding many of Kenya's rivers with clean, cold water.

These glacier-fed rivers help cool the surrounding areas, giving the farms in the county an annual temperature between 13 and 25 C—privileged temperatures compared to other coffee-growing areas in Africa.

The Ngariama region has a long chain of mountains that help provide a diversity of altitudes and terrain for coffee cultivation. While this could seem like an obstacle to access, as in Peru where the presence of Andes means getting to a farm can take 7+ hours by road, in Ngariama the situation is different. The farms are only about a 30 minute trail walk (1-2 km) from the Kainamui washing station. Only in the rainy season does access become complex as mud makes these unpaved trails challenging to navigate.

There is good telephone signal in the area, so the washing station usually informs farmers about the final weight of their coffee and other interesting and useful data they've collected.

The main economic pillar in Ngariama is coffee. Other common crops grown are banana and maize. Grevillea, macadamia, and false banana trees are also planted to provide shade to the coffee trees.

Farms in this region are surrounded by forests of native trees where wild animals such as elephants and buffalos live. Local coffee producers use fences strategically along their farm perimeters to protect their crops and minimize contact with potentially dangerous fauna. The Kenyan government has prohibited logging and hunting in the area and producers are very respectful of these rules.

The predominant population of Ngariama community are the Kikuyu, the oldest native population in the area. Everyone in the area also speaks Kikuyu.

The farms here are mostly very small (1-2 hectares) and adults work the farms while children attend school all day. Schools here cost money, which unfortunately limits access to education and future opportunities in this mostly-poor area. Due to lack of opportunity, much of the young population is migrating en masse to cities in search of better jobs, leaving their parents alone on the farms or even taking their parents and abandoning their farms. This problem gets worse each year, posing a significant threat to the future of coffee production in the region and the preservation of local farming traditions.