Kenya Kimunye AA Kirinyaga 250g

Kenya Overview

Kenya mainly produces fully washed coffees, and is considered by many as the world’s number one quality producer. There are more than 700,000 coffee farmers (smallholders) representing about 55% of the production. The rest is produced mostly by large farms known as Estates.

Almost all our coffees in Kenya are grown by smallholder farmers, each with 1-2 hectares of land. Many farmers will grow different crops and maybe have as few as 100 coffee trees. The farmers are organised in Cooperative Societies that act as umbrella organisations for the Factories (wet mills), where the smallholders deliver their coffee cherries for processing.

Many of the farmers are surrounded by several wet mills and they are free to choose where they deliver their cherries. Due to the traditional auction system in Kenya, quality is rewarded with higher prices. The better factories will then attract more farmers by producing coffees that earn the highest prices, which they return to the farmers in the form of a second payment. After the cost of marketing and preparation is deducted, this can sometimes be up to 90% of the sales price.

In the mill everything is kept separate for the auction, and it’s a great opportunity to cup through the different grades from the same outturns and consignments. We are usually able to cup extensively at the mill or the lab of the marketing agent to pick out our coffees before they enter the auction catalogue. Whenever we have found a coffee and want to commit, we will have the marketing agent negotiate the price directly with the producers, in our case the Cooperative Society as we normally buy from the smallholders cooperatives.

Nordic Approach