Thageini is an old processing factory, first established in 1988, and now part of a small cooperative society consisting of only 4 total factories. This lot is tart with green apple and pear, a classic lemon-lime acidity, and sweet cocoa powder. Welcome to Nyeri 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. Nyeri is perhaps the most well-known of these central counties. Thageini FCS & Processing Kenya’s coffee is dominated by a cooperative system of production, whose members vote on representation, marketing and milling contracts for their coffee, as well as profit allocation. Aguthi Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS), whose membership includes Thageini, Kagumo, Gititu and Gaaki factories, was first incorporated in 1988. Across the society famer members average 200 trees apiece. Tetu sub-county, where the members live, is right on the edge of Kenya’s Aberdare mountain range—so, combined with the massive biome of nearby Mt. Kenya, is surrounded by high elevation national parks on multiple sides, both of which contribute cold nighttime temperatures, rich soils, and fresh ground water to this corner of Nyeri county. As cherry comes to Thageini factory it is hand-sorted on intake to eliminate any imperfections and then weighed and logged under the contributing farmer’s name. Cherry is blended and depulped, and then fermented in water for 24 hours. Once fermentation is complete, the parchment is rinsed and moved to raised beds for drying. The drying phase is typically 2-3 weeks for the coffee to reach 10-12% humidity. Finally, fully dried parchment is rested in large, perforated bins on site, a process that allows the bean’s internal moisture to stabilize for the long transit and shelf life ahead. KCCE – Farmer-centric exporting Aguthi FCS is one of the member societies of the Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters (KCCE) organization. KCCE is an historic organization of almost 4,000 individual cooperatives. The group was formed in 2009, with the express goal of managing marketing and exporting operations cooperatively, as opposed to contractually with third parties. The economics of smallholder systems are consistently difficult everywhere in the world, and in Kenya in particular the number of individual margins sliced off an export price before payment reaches the actual farms is many, leaving only a small percentage to support coffee growth itself. And most often this arrives many months after harvest. KCCE, by managing more of the value chain itself, can capture a greater margin on behalf of the farms.
