Small estates, typically 15 hectares or less, are a rare middle ground in Kenya, whose coffee production is dominated by either smallholder organizations with centralized processing, or very large estates with hundreds of hectares. Njawato Estate is a unique producer with a long history of cultivation and outstanding quality.
Central Kenya & Kirinyaga County
Mt. Kenya, at the helm of Kenya’s Central Province, is the second tallest peak on the continent of Africa and a commanding natural presence. The mountain itself is a single point inside a vast and surreal thicket of ascending national forest and active game protection communities. The central counties of Kenya extend from the center of the national park, like five irregular pie slices, with their points meeting at the peak of the mountain. It is along the lower edge of the forests where, in wet, high elevation communities with mineral-rich soil (Mt. Kenya is a stratovolcano) many believe the best coffees in Kenya, often the world, are crafted. Kirinyaga is one of the best-known of these central counties.
Symon Mariku and the Farm
Symon Mariku first planted coffee in the 1970s in Kirinyaga County. The estate, Njawato, is about 3.5 hectares in size and is planted with 5,000 coffee trees. Although it's small, Njawato is still very productive--it's densely planted with minimal shade or other crops and consistently fertilized with manure-based compost made on sight. The farm produces, under Mr. Mariku's management, 20,000 kilos of coffee cherry, or about 50 exportable bags, an impressive number for any origin, let alone Central Kenya.
Washed Processing at Njawato
Symon processes his coffee very traditionally for the central Kenya region, by fermenting and re-soaking the parchment to achieve a thoroughly clean, pearly-white final parchment.
Cherry is delivered each picking day to the central wet mill. After hand-sorting for consistency and ripeness, the cherry is depulped with fresh spring water and fermented for 16-24 hours. Once fermentation is complete, the parchment is soaked again in fresh water for 8-12 hours, and then moved to raised screen tables to dry, typically for 5-7 days. Symon works with Central Kenya Coffee Mill, nearby in Karatina town, and delivers his finished parchment there for storage, milling, and presentation to Kenya's central auction or direct sale.
The established milling and sorting by grade, or bean size, is a longstanding tradition and positions Kenya coffees well for roasters, by tightly controlling the physical preparation and creating a diversity of profiles from a single processing batch.
Kenya's Outturn System
“20CK0115” in the title refers to this coffee’s “outturn” number. Outturn numbers are unique microlot codes that are given to each and every batch of parchment delivered to dry mills from individual factories or estates anywhere in Kenya, and are the units on which Kenya’s entire microlot export system is built. Outturns in Kenya are tracked with a shorthand code that places the specific batch of parchment coffee in time, place, and sequentially with other coffees. Outturns are stylized as an 8 or 9-character code, including a 2-digit “coffee week” number, a 2-letter mill code, and a 3 or 4-digit intake number for the coffee’s delivery. So, this particular lot was delivered in harvest week 20, to the Central Kenya Coffee Mill (code “CK”) and was the 115th delivery that week.
