"Intense brown sugar with dark chocolate and mellow raisin flavors. Tangy acidity and sugary sweetness."
Background: Microlot (from the Importer):
Microlots from Kenya are traceable to either the factory level or individual farm level (when possible), and are selected basis cup score. Because the majority of coffee farmers in Kenya own between 1/8–1/4 a hectare of land, most deliver coffee in cherry form to a local factory for sorting and processing; at the factory, the deliveries are blended and processed into day lots comprising the day' s deliveries. Our green buyer for Kenya typically takes up residency in Kenya during the harvest due to the sheer number of samples to be cupped and selects the best of these lots to purchase as microlots (fewer than 100 bags).
MUTITU
Mutitu factory was started in 1963 and it lies on the southern slopes of Mount Kenya, in the Kirinyaga region. The mill is used by small-hold farmers in the area. This and the adjacent regions are the premier coffee areas in Kenya, and the coffees from here are consistently among the best in the world.
Mutitu factory is located in Kathekiini location, in Kirinyaga county. There are 1,250 members who deliver coffee cherries to the Mutitu factory who each have on average around ½ acre of land, with roughly 200 trees for coffee growing alongside macadamia, beans and corn. In line with the rising awareness on the need to conserve the environment, the factory has dug the waste water soak pits away from the water source where the waste water is allowed to soak in back to the soil. Additionally, the society encourages its members to plant trees on their farms.
Harvesting and Processing
The coffee is handpicked by the smallholder members and delivered to the factory, where it is pulped. This initially separates the dense beans from the immature ‘mbuni’s (floaters) using water floatation which means the denser beans will sink and be sent through channels to the fermentation tank.
This first stage of fermentation will last for around 24 hours, after which the beans are washed and sent to the secondary fermentation tank for another 12-24 hours.
Once the fermentation process is completed, the beans enter the washing channels where floaters are separated further and the dense beans are cleaned of mucilage. The washed beans will then enter soaking tanks, where they can sit under clean water for as long as another 24 hours. This soaking process allows amino acids and proteins in the cellular structure of each bean to develop, which results in higher levels of acidity and complex fruit flavors in the cup - it is thought that this process of soaking contributes to the flavour profiles that Kenyan coffees are so famed for.
The beans are then transferred to the initial drying tables, where they are laid in a thin layer to allow around 50% of the moisture to be quickly removed. This first stage of drying can last around 6 hours, before the beans are gathered and laid in thicker layers for the remaining 5-10 days of the drying period. The dry parchment coffee is then delivered to a private mill and put into ‘bodegas’ to rest – these are raised cells made of chicken wire which allows the coffee to breathe fully. Coffee is traditionally sold through the country’s auction system, though recent amendments to the coffee law of Kenya have brought about the introductionof direct trading, whereby farmers can by-pass the auction and sell directly to specialty roasters around the world.