Kenya and the unique aroma of coffee

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3/8/2019
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Kenya lies at longitude 34 – 42 degrees and latitudes 5 degrees and covers an area of 580 thousand square kilometers. There are about 43 million inhabitants. The two main coffee growing areas are in the surroundings of Mt. Kenya in Central Kenya as well the west all the way towards Mt. Elgon at the border of Uganda.

BACKGROUND INFO

Kenya can produce up to 65,000 tons of green coffee and varies from year to year. The last few years it’s been around 45,000 tons. Kenya mainly produces fully washed coffees, and is considered by many as the world’s number one quality producer. There are more than 700 thousand coffee farmers (smallholders) representing about 55% of the production. The rest are mostly Estates. There are about 3000 small estates with less than 20 hectares, 300 larger ones and about 1,100 cooperative wet mills. Coffee exports counts for about 10% of Kenya’s income.


THE VARIETIES

Coffee plants were first brought into Tanzania by the French missionaries from Bourbon Island. At the same time Scottish missionaries were active in Kenya and were experimenting with Mocha seedlings from Ethiopia. Together the two groups introduced the two strains Mocha and Bourbon. It supposedly hybridized in the Kilimanjaro area into a new varietal known as French Mission.

They started early in Kenya to experiment with varietals. Around 1910 they experimented with the Tanzanian (Tanganyika) varietals and mixed them with varietals from Mysore in India. This hybrid is now known as Kent.

In the 1920s they used the French Mission as a base to create something called “Kenyas Selected.”

In 1934 they started to develop new varieties in the Scot Laboratories. They discovered a variety in the Mondul area in Tanzania that had good resistance against drought and pests. They also gathered trees of the original French Mission and other varietals that seemed to perform well. About 42 different trees of the French Mission and different Mocha varieties were selected in the 1930s based on their yield, quality and resistance to pests, drought and diseases.

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The new varietals from the Scot Laboratories was prefixed as SL. They started with SL1 created from the “Kenya Selected” and developed a lot of different SL’s continued with SL2 , 3, 4 and so on, all created from different varietals based on French Mission, Bourbon and Mocha (Typica). Finally they ended up with the SL 28 and SL 34 that are still widely used.

SL 28 was selected from a single tree from a Tanzanian drought resistance variety, and have some Ethiopian influence as well as traits from a tree from Sudan’s Boma plateau. It has a broad copper tip leaf, bold beans, but are pretty low yielding. It’s known for delicate and complex flavor attributes.

SL 34 came from a single selection of French Mission at an Estate in Nairobi. It’s similar to the old “Kenya Selected” in appearance. It has been highly appreciated for its high yield and shows good resistance to droughts.

K7, another well-known variety was also selected from the French Mission, and are known for great immunity towards diseases. Still, not as much appreciated for cup quality as the SL’s.

Ruiru 11 was created in the 1980’s. The goal was to create a high yield plant resistant to leaf rust and CBD (coffee berry disease). They mixed “Hibrido de Timor” (a Robusta/Arabica hybrid) with “Rume Sudan” from the Boma plateau as well as with SL 28 and SL 34 for improved cup quality.

Blue Mountain was brought in from Jamaica and planted in western Kenya around 1913. It hasn’t been too successful in Kenya, but you can still find it in the Western parts. Batian is a new high yielding disease resistant variety that was released by the Coffee Research Foundation in Kenya in 2010. It’s supposed to improve cup qualities compared to Ruiru 11, and should be more equal to the SL 28. It’s back crossed from SL 28 and SL 34 and include SL4, N39, N30, Hibrido de Timor, Rume Sudan, and K7.


DISEARSES

One of the largest challenges the coffee plant faces is the fungus that causes CBD or “Coffee Berry Disease.”. The fungus lives in the bark of the coffee tree and produces spores which attack the coffee cherries. The coffee cherries become dark, almost black in color and if it spreads at a farm or estate it can be devastating. It can be treated with copper formulations or organic fungicides. Still, this is too expensive for most farmers.

Another other challenge is leaf rust. It creates red/brown spots on the leaves. Coffee leaf rust is spread by wind and rain from spores from lesions on the underside of the plant. It can also be treated with expensive copper-based fungicides.


CHERRY DELIVERY

Is done at the wet mills or at collection centers. When the farmers arrive at the place for delivery they would normally have to empty their bags on the floor (on a cover) to sort out unripe, overripe and CBD infected cherries. A supervisor inspects the cherries before they are weighed and the farmers get a small up front payment for the delivery. The delivery from every farmer is registered and they get a receipt for the amount. This will be the base for their right to payment after the coffee is sold. Some farmers are organized in groups or associations to be able to cooperate on investments for soil inputs and necessary equipment for farming.

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PULPING

After the coffees are weighed they go into the main cherry hopper above the pulper. Some wet mills have a separate hopper for the low grades such as under and over ripes. When they start the pulper the cherries go by gravity into the machine. They normally use disc pulpers such as old three disc Agaarde or similar brands. As long as you change the discs from time to time they can work perfectly well. It’s also important to adjust the pulper to remove the pulp (fruit) properly without damaging the parchment. The parchment flows from the discs with water allowing the parchment to be separated by density. The densest beans will sink and are pumped straight through a channel to the fermentation tank as P1 (parchment 1), the semi dense will go to a separate fermentation tank as P2. The floaters, P3, are considered as low grades and will normally go straight to the drying tables.


FERMENTATION

After pulping, the coffees are dry fermented (water is drained off) in painted concrete tanks. Normally they are fermented for 18-24 hours. Many factories do intermediate washing every 6 – 8 hours, meaning they add water, stir up the parchment and drain it again.


WASHING AND SOAKING

When fermentation is completed and the mucilage is dissolved the parchment gets washed in washing channels and graded again by density. The lighter beans will float off and the remaining dense parchment will normally be soaked in clean water up to 24 hours.


DRYING AND CONDITIONING

After soaking, the coffees are skin dried at hessian mesh mats for skin drying up to one day. This is to quickly get off the moisture at the surface of the parchment. Typically after a day the coffees are moved to the traditional drying tables. The coffee is then normally dried on a surface of jute clothing or shade net on top of the wire mesh. The parchment is constantly moved as they sort out defected parchment and beans. The coffee has to be covered with plastic during the hottest periods of the day, normally between 12pm and 2pm as well as during the night. The drying time varies between 12 and 20 days depending on weather and rainfall. The moisture target is 11-12%.

They also have a tradition of intermediate conditioning. Depending on the capacity on the drying tables and the producer’s philosophy, some of them take the parchment into the conditioning bins at what they call the black stage, when the coffees are stabilized at around 16%. They can be conditioned for some weeks before they are placed on the drying tables again to finish of the drying.


DRYING MILL AND MARKETING

A producer normally has an agreement with a marketing agent and a dry mill.

Whenever he has a consignment ready he delivers the parchment to the mill. This could typically be 200 bags of parchment, equivalent to about 130 bags of exportable greens. The producer is still the owner of the coffee, the miller will charge a fixed fee for the milling and the marketing agent will have a margin based on percentages from the sales.

The coffee will be milled and graded in to bean size and different qualities. The mill and marketing agent normally cooperate and the coffee will then often be cupped, and presented in the auction catalogue by the marketing agent. At this point it can also be marketed and sold directly.



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