Kenyan coffee is famous for its bright fruity acidity, hefty body, and complex flavors, and AA grade is the benchmark among them. This article is based on a five-day visit to Kenya's production regions, starting from Nairobi and passing through Thika, Kiambu, and Nyeri, with on-site inspections of Sasini Estate, Jane's smallholder farm, and Thika Coffee Mills, systematically sorting out Kenya's coffee growing conditions, variety characteristics, grading, and washing process. Whether you care about estate beans or smallholder beans, you can find answers here. Front Street Coffee also continues to recommend Kenya AA, and the information in this article can serve as a reference for purchasing.

Kenya's coffee-producing regions are mainly distributed around the capital, Nairobi, and extend northeast to the Nyeri, Meru, and Embu areas around Mount Kenya. We started from Nairobi and embarked on a five-day farm trip, visiting multiple farms and estates in Thika, Kiambu, and Nyeri, trying to lift the veil on Kenya's "black gold." Kenya's growing environment is indeed richly endowed by nature, but the diligence and dedication of local coffee farmers make people even more willing to pay high prices for Kenyan coffee. If you have ever been involved in Kenya's coffee export process, you will definitely be amazed by its professional and massive number of cuppings. The full washing process lasting up to 72 hours, plus meticulous packaging procedures, is equally impressive. In this country known as the "cradle of humankind," Kenyans interpret admirable coffee in their own way.

I. Scenery of Nairobi Nairobi is the capital of Kenya and also the country's political, economic, cultural, and transportation hub. It is said that the climate here is like spring all year round, ranking among the best among capitals worldwide, hence the name "Little Paris of Africa." The Maasai call it Nairobi, meaning "cool water."

Nairobi Airport

Kenyan shilling, exchange rate to RMB is about 10 to 1

Nairobi is densely populated, and the narrow streets are especially crowded, with traffic jams becoming the norm. Unlike in China, traffic jams here have a different scene: vendors weave through the traffic, selling daily necessities to drivers and passengers. I also saw someone selling pinwheels shaped like Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf.

A sightseeing corner of Nairobi

This is the Viewpoint observation spot in western Nairobi, at an elevation of 2,666 meters. Below the mountain is the East African Rift Valley, and opposite there is also a slightly tilted volcano. The view is extremely open. Does it feel a bit like "When I reach the summit, I see all other mountains as small"?

Genuine cowhide blankets, sold very cheaply, about 80 to 200 RMB each. In China, it would probably cost 500 yuan, right?

There are also children on the mountain selling rabbits

II. Coffee Farms and Estates Before setting out, I had a question: Are Kenya's estate beans better, or are smallholder beans better? If estate beans, which estate is best? Actually, the answer is very simple: keep reading and you will know.

The mountain road is rugged, and we rode in a special open-top vehicle

Fertile red-black soil could be seen all along the way

At first I thought they were coffee trees, but a friend traveling with us told us these were actually pineapples (Pine Apple)

We finally arrived at Sasini in Kiambu. This is a coffee processing factory, and it also has its own coffee estate

Sasini has an observation tower, and we could climb up to look down at the surroundings

The vast Sasini coffee estate

It was flowering season at this time, and most coffee trees were full of flowers

Coffee trees in the dusk

Compared with Sasini Estate, Jane's coffee farm is more remote. It is located in the mountains of Thika, and after leaving the highway, you still have to climb along the mountain road for 1 hour to reach it

The farm owner, Jane, is a plump woman, with a white scarf wrapped around her head, wearing an old white top and a long blue skirt

Jane's coffee farm. Jane told us that her coffee garden has about 170 trees, covers 0.25 mu, produces twice a year, and yields a total of 1,500 kilograms of coffee cherries

The coffee trees in the garden range from 1 meter to 1.5 meters tall, with about 90 centimeters between trees, and bananas or other crops are interplanted among them. Jane said that coffee trees are afraid of direct sun, and planting these crops serves multiple purposes: first, they provide shade; second, they help the coffee trees absorb nutrients better

Every 4 to 5 years, Jane cuts back the coffee trees, keeping the bottom of the trunk so that it becomes a stump. New branches can grow from the stump and bear higher-quality fruit. Usually, Jane also keeps one of the thickest branches. This branch is called the "mother." Why keep it? Because once the "mother" is cut off, the roots will wither, and the entire coffee tree will die with it

Occasionally, some leaves are found to be yellowish or have small spots. This is because the tree has Coffee Berry Disease. This coffee garden is entirely planted with the SL-28 variety, which tastes very good but has slightly weaker disease resistance. To improve disease resistance, Kenyan coffee farmers developed new varieties, the most typical of which should be R11. It is said that Kenya's R11 variety has reached 5%, but its taste is not as good as SL-28, so it has not been widely adopted by most coffee farmers

A comparison of good cherries and bad cherries makes it clear

Because February is not the harvest season, we did not see ripe coffee cherries in Kenya. Here is a photo of coffee cherries taken during a trip to Ethiopia

Joseph, a village committee cadre. I took the opportunity to ask Joseph a question I cared about: Are estate beans better or smallholder beans better? Joseph said: There is no absolute answer to this question. This is because Kenya's coffee industry consists of 75% smallholder cultivation and 25% estate cultivation. Compared with smallholder cultivation, estate cultivation has the advantages of advanced technology and unified management; while compared with estate cultivation, smallholder cultivation involves careful tending and greater use of organic fertilizer. In addition, regional factors and weather factors also affect coffee quality, so it is difficult to judge which is superior. In Thika, most coffee is grown individually by farmers, and sometimes rural cooperatives organize it together and then sell it to processing factories. The farmers are very united. In order to sell coffee at a better price, they continuously improve agricultural requirements and develop high-quality tree varieties, urging each other on and encouraging neighbors not to cut corners, thereby greatly advancing the pace of Kenya's coffee development

Jane's own dairy cow, a self-sufficient life, full of joy and harmony

A mother and child by the roadside on the hillside, their eyes full of curiosity when they saw us. Perhaps they rarely see foreigners; to them, anyone without dark skin is novel. There were also many children by the roadside. When we walked up, the children scattered like a swarm, some hiding under trees not far away, some running into the house, occasionally peeking out to take a look. Occasionally one or two farmer brothers growing crops would pass by, and when our eyes met, they would say very friendly: Jambo! (Hello!)

III. Coffee Washing Stations and Processing Factories A Swiss friend once told me: Latitude affects body; the closer to the equator, the heavier the body. Altitude affects acidity; the higher the altitude, the more ideal the acidity. Soil affects flavor; the more fertile the soil, the better the coffee cherries grow. Kenya, crossed by the equator, has natural volcanic ash soil. Around Africa's second-highest mountain, Mount Kenya, Kenyans use the ancient Bourbon coffee variety to grow the world's top Arabica coffee on land with an average altitude above 1,600 meters. I do not know whether saying "the world's top" is too absolute, but at least Kenyans firmly believe so. Kenya's wet process method, also known as the fully washed method, after 90 years of historical accumulation, has developed to be very mature today and is reputed to be the finest washing process in all of Africa and even the world.

In this way, 6.5 kilograms of coffee cherries become 1 kilogram of parchment coffee beans after the washing process—also known as parchment coffee

After the coffee cherries ripen, farmers pick the cherries and transport them to the washing station. Unlike Ethiopia, Kenyans use the terrain to build washing stations on hillsides, so that coffee cherries can flow with the water down the slope to the next level, greatly saving labor costs. Basically every rural cooperative has a well-equipped washing station

Then, coffee cherries from different farms (in the same rural area) are gathered here, ready for pulping

The coffee cherries flow from top to bottom and pass through a pulping machine, also called a pulper. After passing through the pulper, coffee beans can be divided by density into 3 grades: heavy-grade beans, medium-grade beans, and light-grade beans. Generally speaking, medium-grade beans and heavy-grade beans are both relatively good. The legendary AA is selected from medium- and heavy-grade beans

Close-up of the pulper

Heavy-grade beans, medium-grade beans, and light-grade beans come out of the pulper and flow through different channels into their respective fermentation tanks

After coming out of the pulper, the green coffee beans have basically taken shape, but the surface of the coffee beans still has a layer of sugary mucilage attached, so they must undergo fermentation treatment in fermentation tanks. Kenya's fermentation time is astonishingly long, up to 12-72 hours, depending on weather and temperature

At this point, the sugary mucilage on the surface of the coffee beans has fallen off. To ensure the reaction is complete, farmers also wash them once more in the channels

Temporary skin drying tables on the hillside. After 2-4 hours of simple drying, they are moved to drying tables

Drying tables, usually dried for 8 to 21 days, until the moisture content is 13% to 16%

Sun-dried parchment coffee

Finally, the parchment coffee is stored in warehouses, ready to be sent to processing factories. Whether it is a smallholder coffee farm, a rural cooperative, or a large coffee estate, all washed parchment coffee must be transported to a coffee processing factory for processing. The equipment in processing factories is very expensive, and generally only large enterprises and the government can afford it

Thika Coffee Mills. Kenya has a total of 6 large processing factories, and Thika has two, namely Thika Coffee Mills and Tropical Coffee Mills, among which Thika is the largest. Because Thika Coffee Mills has complete equipment and advanced processes, some rural cooperatives from Uganda and Rwanda travel thousands of miles to bring their coffee here for processing

Once all processing is complete, beans of each grade can be taken to auction for sale. The end... At this point, our trip to Nairobi, Kenya, has ended!

The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.