tasting notes: red currant, strawberry, malt syrup
region: kirinyaga
producer: kabingara coffee factory (500+ members), owned by karithathi farmers’ cooperative society (fcs)
varietals: ruiru 11, sl28, sl34, batian
process: washed, dried on raised beds
altitude: 1,500 masl
importer: red fox
from red fox:
Kibingara Coffee Factory was established in 1988 and serves as a processing point for coffee from Kamwana, Gatumbi, Kithama, and Kathaka Villages. With over 500 members, Kibingara is affiliated with the Karithathi Farmers Cooperative Society.
Nowhere are coffees as thoroughly cleaned as they are in Kenya. The typical process looks something like this: after depulping, coffee beans are left to ferment. Then, after 24 hours they are washed and left to ferment again, without water, for another 12-24 hours. The parchment is then washed before being soaked in tanks for another period of roughly 12-18 hours. At this stage, the beans are moved to skin drying beds where they are laid out in thin layers to allow the mass of water weight to fall. This happens over the course of a morning. This entire process is sometime referred to as the 72 hour process. From there the coffee goes to raised drying beds for the next 8 to 12 days. By the end of this process, the coffee is as clean as a whistle. The work is already done. Not a drop of mucilage will be found on the pristinely white parchment, and no extra flavor is imparted to the beans except by what happened at the farm and in the fermentation tanks.