Platinum plan

Kenya Gachatha

Included ($50/month)

On the subscription, not a one-off shop price.

The arrival of hot summer weather in Minnesota means the arrival of fresh crop coffees from various East African countries - Kenya being one of them. Kenya has a fairly unique auction system. Coffees are first separated into smaller lots from their coffee factories (this is the facility where coffee is processed - similar to what is elsewhere called "washing stations" or "wet mills"). After this separation, the lots are then auctioned off. This tends to drive up the cup quality, since higher scoring coffees typically command higher prices. Here is what our import partner, Cafe Imports, has to say about this lot they helped us source: "Gachatha factory is operated by the Gachatha Farmers Cooperative Society and sits on 391 acres between the villages of Muthuaini, Thiriku, Gachenge, and Kianjau. It was built in 1963, and current membership is about 1,050, with roughly 900 active members. The factory has nine permanent staff, and hires around 25 seasonal workers to oversee receipt and processing during the harvest season. Permanent staff is in charge of key roles such as receiving and weighing cherries, registering complaints and concerns, and managing farmer payments. The average farmer has about 300 coffee trees on less than one hectare of land. Farmers here typically grow other crops as well as coffee. The area surrounding Gachatha is densely populated, which requires the factory to take particular precautions with regards to waste water and pollutants. The factory has soak pits for water treatment to avoid contamination with fresh-water sources, and the community takes care to preserve the indigenous plant life in the area, to protect local bird and animal species."