Kenya Nyeri Othaya Kamoini Red Cherry Project AA GrainPro

Coffee Background

597 Smallholder farmers organized around the Kamoini Factory is sourced from family owned farms organized around the Kamoini Factory (wet mill) within the Nyeri growing region along the fertile foothills of the Aberdare mountain range. Farmers are members of the Othaya Farming Cooperative Society, which has its own dry mill operation in Gatuyaini. Kenyan producers generally cultivate around 250 coffee trees on half-acre plots. With the harvest coming from small parcels, cherry classification is the most critical variable for ensuring cup quality. Small plots give these producers more control to strategically pick and deliver only the ripest cherry to the factory. The Red Cherry Project institutes additional quality protocols to preserve the hallmark Kenyan profiles including post-harvest cherry sorting at the factory followed by cherry floating to remove less dense beans, 72 hour fermentation times, a 24 hour fresh water soak, wet parchment shade covered sorting to remove any beans damaged from depulping, sorting during the drying stage, storage in grainpro immediately after drying is complete, and hand sorting again after milling with immediate packaging in grainpro for export.