Ichamama is regularly one of the best, most straightforward Kenyas we buy. When they started offering naturals in addition to the standard washed lots we bought for years, we were thrilled. This year’s natural selection is big, jammy, and berry-like, unmistakably a natural, with heavy chocolate and sweet wine, but also a decent amount of brightness as well for an intense but balanced cup.
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 six irregular pie slices, with their points meeting at the peak of the mountain. It is along the lower edge of these forests where, in wet, high elevation communities with mineral-rich soil (Mt. Kenya is a stratovolcano) many believe the best coffees in Kenya are produced.
Nyeri is perhaps the most well-known of these central counties. 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.
Ichamama Factory & Processing
Ichamama factory membership is primarily 1-acre farmers, less than half a single hectare. Coffee is a most critical cash crop among them but is not the only thing grown—farmers tend to have legumes and vegetables, and occasionally livestock or tea as well. Farmers deliver cherry weekly or more during the harvest month, handpicking and transporting everything themselves or with the help of small amounts of local labor.
Naturals at Ichamama are a much smaller operation than standard washed coffee, as to be expected in Kenya, where fully washed is by far the norm. Hand-sorted cherry is weighed and logged under the contributing farmer’s name, and then moved directly to raised beds where they are initially wrapped in polyethylene plastic and allowed to ferment anaerobically for 48 hours. After this phase the cherries are left to sun-dry for as long as 29 days, far longer than standard washed parchment, until the internal moisture is 10-12%, during which they’re rotated constantly to ensure even airflow.
Othaya Farmers Cooperative Society
Othaya Farmers Cooperative Society, the umbrella organization that includes Ichamama, is one of Kenya’s larger societies, with 19 different factories and more than 14,000 farmer members across the southern Nyeri region. Othaya is a part of the Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporter.
KCCE is an historic organization comprised of many individual coop societies. The group was formed in 2009, with the express goal of managing marketing and exporting operations cooperatively, as opposed to contractually with third parties. In addition to coffee production, KCCE oversees a cooperative network of millers and a domestic roasted coffee brand sold nation-wide in Kenya.
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.
