This is a single outturn from a factory (wet mill) in Kenya's western Kericho county. Kericho has a unique climate and a long history of producing excellent coffee, despite being less famous than the country's central counties. We buy a small selection of western coffees each year, for their uniqueness in the cup and durable cooperatives, like Boma Farmers Cooperative Society Limited (FCS), Kericho county is a long stretch west from Nairobi, far further than the country’s accessible central counties, most of which can be reached in two hours’ drive from the city. To reach Kericho, it's a sweeping route along the eastern escarpment of the majestic Rift Valley, down across the valley's lake-filled lowlands, up the opposite slope, and back into the rolling hills along Kenya's border regions with Uganda. Tea is Kenya’s most lucrative export by far, and Kericho county is a tea-producing powerhouse (“Kericho Gold” is one of Kenya’s national brands of bagged tea that is exported worldwide). The county sits just over the ridge from the enormous Lake Victoria, a source of near-constant humidity cycles for the region and an outlet for much of its local trade. In specialty coffee, this part of Kenya is lesser-known than the central counties. But producer groups here as just as old, experienced, and organized as Kenya’s more famous regions. Boma FCS Boma Farmers Cooperative Society Limited (FCS) has one wet mill located in Fort Tenan in the Kericho county. Currently Boma has 480 farmer members registered from which 430 remain active in the organization. Member’s average size of their farm is 1 hectare of coffee, tea, and subsistence crops. Processing at Boma Kenya is of course known for some of the most meticulous at-scale processing that can be found anywhere in the world. Bright white parchment, nearly perfectly sorted by density and bulk conditioned at high elevations is the norm, and a matter of pride, even for generations of Kenyan processing managers who prefer drinking Kenya’s tea (especially in Kericho) to its coffee. 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. Boma depulps and ferments their coffee the same day they are picked and delivered by members. Fermentation takes place overnight, and the coffee is then washed clean and dried slowly over 2-3 weeks on raised beds. Kenya's Outturn System “51KK0055” 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. This particular code accompanies the lot throughout the entire journey from factory to export to ensure full traceability.
