feature
text
katy fentress & LiZ
maelane
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BEAN
TO CUP
The story of any
cup of coffee
begins in the
soil.
BLACK GOLD HARVEST
Coffee is harvested two
times per year. Harvesting
takes place when the berries turn a deep red.
In Kenya, harvesting is
still done by hand.
We are sitting in the living room
at the farmhouse at the Kaigwa
Coffee Estate in Mukurweini, Nyeri
County, with Uche Kaigwa-Okoye.
We are here to talk about the
journey of Kenya’s “Black Gold”,
from the plantations upcountry to
your strong morning cup of brew.
Kaigwa-Okoye, who has been
running his family’s coffee estate
for the past two years, is busy
sifting through a pile of black
kidney beans. He tells us that
he intends to plant the beans
underneath the coffee bushes
because they add nitrogen back
into the soil which conditions
it and prevents the sun from
scorching the ground.
From cherry to cup, Kenya’s
coffee travels a unique journey.
This journey, and the production
process along the way, is what
creates the perfect AA Arabica that
makes Kenya’s beans some of the
most sought after in the world.
“My family has been planting
Arabica for four generations,”
Kaigwa-Okoye tells us. “As I’m
sure you know, Arabica is the
finest quality of coffee you can
get. It’s the high-grade stuff: when
you close your eyes and think of
coffee, that’s the smell you should
be imagining”.
According to Kaigwa-Okoye,
the reason that Kenyan coffee is
so highly prized, is because the
whole region around Mount Kenya
has volcanic soil and is incredibly
fertile. The altitude combined
with the year-round twelve hours
of equatorial sunlight, makes the
area perfect for coffee cultivation.
“It’s an alpine climate in a
tropical region on the equator,”
he explains. “Who could ask for
more?”
THE COFFEE BELT
Kenya is in the Bean Belt
which runs from Costa Rica,
to Ethiopia and Java. Fine
Arabica Beans grow between 3,600 and 6,300 feet
“Of course our berries are
hand-picked,” says Kaigwa-Okoye.
“The Nyeri area in particular is
so mountainous, there are no
machines that could actually do
the job. And anyway,” he adds,
“when you pick beans by hand
you only pick the ripe ones. From a
cluster of twenty beans you might
only get ten but those ten are
ready and you can always come
back for the rest after a couple of
days”.
On the Kaigwa Estate, coffee
is processed at the wet “pulping
station” where beans are
separated from the pulp, sorted
based on ripeness and size and
then moved into a fermentation
tank where they are rinsed and
dried. The berries must be left to
dry for a month or more before
they can be sent to the mill. Milling
is done by machine and includes
hulling the coffee bean that is
hidden inside the husk. After that
comes the polishing and then
MISSION COFFEE
Kenya seedling varieties
SL28, SL34 were brought
to Kenya by French and
Scottish missions in the late
1800s
COOPERATIVE COFFEE
Sixty percent of Kenya
Coffee is produce by small
holders and cooperatives
grading and sorting. At this point
the green coffee beans are ready
for sale and then roasting.
The first Kenya Coffee Auction
took place in 1938 and has since
been a time-honoured, weekly
tradition. “I love going to the
auction house” smiles KaigwaOkoye. “Everything reeks of old
money there. They have these
pictures on the walls that have
been there since the fifties and
each chair is equipped with an
ashtray and a button that emits a
sound when pressed”.
After the purchased beans
are collected from a storage
warehouse, they are brought to
the coffee brand’s factory to be
roasted. Some will be roasted
to a medium roast and some to
a dark roast depending on their
blend. Thereafter the beans can
be packed as is, or they are moved
up to a grinder, which will produce
either a fine grind or a medium
grind, depending on the way the
coffee will be brewed.
“When I drink coffee I like to
have a light medium roast which
I finely grind at home and then
filter” Kaigwa-Okoye tells us.
“Generally I will let it sit for a while
and drink it black with no sugar,
as I need to taste it and see if it
fermented properly. However,”
he concludes, “I do like a sweet
cappuccino once in a while. The
Italians really do know how to
make a good coffee!”
AUCTION SAMPLING
Bigger coffee brands such
as Dormans are given
samples to try before the
auction takes place. They
taste between 1000 and
4000 coffee samples