Smallholders, Big Impact
Most of Kenya’s coffee is produced by smallholders – small-scale farmers. This doesn’t mean they’re insignificant; it simply refers to the size of their farms, usually under two hectares. These farmers don’t process the coffee themselves. Instead, freshly picked cherries are delivered to cooperatives, which handle processing at local washing stations. That’s where the cherries are transformed into what we know as washed coffee.
In this case, the coffee cherries are supplied by the Inoi Farmers Cooperative Society and processed at the Kaguyu factory, managed by Wilson Wanjohi. The coffee is processed using the washed method. After delivery, the cherries are pulped to remove the seeds, fermented overnight, then washed, soaked, and dried on raised beds. The mineral-rich red volcanic soil, combined with the coffee varieties used (SL-34, Ruiru 11, SL-28, and Batian), results in a distinctive flavor profile: intense sweetness, acidity, and notes of blueberries.
A bit of history: Coffee arrived in Kenya relatively late, at the end of the 19th century, during the colonial period when the British established coffee plantations. For many years, local farmers were not legally allowed to grow coffee themselves. It wasn’t until the 1930s that they were permitted to produce coffee independently – a shift that laid the foundation for today’s Kenyan specialty coffee scene and made coffee one of the country’s key sources of national income.
