COFFEE PRODUCER

Kianderi

Kianderi is a cooperative of coffee producers located in the Kirinyaga district south of mount Kenya. We've been buying coffee from them since 2016, and this year we had to purchase and import the coffee entirely ourselves, which presented a few interesting challenges!

Overview

Location:

Kianderi, Kirinyaga

Altitude:

1700+

Varietal:

SL28, SL34 witih small amounts of Ruiru and Batian

Meet The Producers

Kianderi is a washing station linked to the larger Inoi cooperative. About 500 coffee-producing farmers deliver their cherry to the washing station and are paid cash on delivery. Kenya coffee is usually produced by small-hold farmers, often with just a few hundred trees, who will harvest from their trees every few days and deliver to a centralized collection point or washing station for processing. 

Harvesting & Processing

After harvesting, coffee is delivered, and farmers are paid in cash (usually followed by an end-of-season bonus), and coffee is prepared for processing. The coffee is first pulped, and Kianderi uses a long 48-hour extended dry fermentation method. After fermentation, the coffee is washed and graded in grading channels.

This grading method uses water to separate coffee based on density with better quality, heavy coffee sinking to the bottom. This will be kept separate and, after washing will be transferred to raised drying tables.

During the drying stage, coffee is often hand sorted to remove any further defects and covered during the day to protect the coffee from harsh direct sunlight. Once the coffee has dried to about 12% moisture content, it will be moved to a storage area and allowed to rest before being taken to the local dry mill for processing.

The dry mill will then seperate the coffee into various bean sizes. The most well know are the AA, AB and PB bean sizes. These don't specify a quality but rather a bean size.

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