As promised here are some more notes from our trip to Kenya last week.

After spending a whole day at the Tekangu coop, filming their processing techniques (to be launched in video soon) and handing over the drying tables we funded through our Drying table project, we went to visit some smallholder farmers to document the picking of the cherries. We visited one shamba (smallholder farm) which was by far the best one I have ever seen.

The trees looked super healthy and the farmer Mr. Eliud Kimotho delivers his coffee to the Karogoto factory. (No wonder their coffee is so tasty.)
He produces an average of 30 kg of coffee cherries per tree and had a total of 180 trees only.
Eliud started farming 10 years ago when he retired from his old work and he also grew corn, potatoes, bananas, grass for his cattle, all mainly for domestic consumption.
We were promised a bag of Mr. Eliud’s coffee to be dried on on the new drying tables at Karogoto and hopefully they will keep their word so I can taste that coffee in February.

On another Shamba we visited in Kirinyaga, the trees looked a lot more stressed, had more leaf rust and were carrying very little cherries.
This was because the farmer did not have money to buy fertilizer and copper spray as the cooperative he was a part of were not able to pre-finance his farm input. The problem with this is that in Kenya most farmers get pre-financing for farm input (fertilizer, etc) based upon the last crop yields. Since the crop yield is very low this year, the farmers will not be able to buy enough fertilizer, etc for the 2011/12 crop -the prognosis is that it will be very high in volume. That means the farmers will not be able to produce to the full potential in 2011. It is easy to forget what long term effects a bad crop can have on a farmer. As a coffee buyer we are only affected by the fluctuations in the prices and that is why I believe it is important to support the farmers also when the prices or yields are low by paying more for their best qualities.

Thursday morning we also cupped different grades.
This means we took samples from the same lot but sorted the beans in the different sizes as they are sold on auction. (AA / AB / PB / C / T / TT and UG). The results were fairly obvious, the AA was the best (biggest beans) The PB (Peaberry) and AB were fairly similar and C, T, and TT were bitter and flat and some had sour and fermenty taste. The UG (Ungraded) was by far the worst coffee I have ever tasted. It tasted like manure and rotten fruit. The aromas was similar to the ones you get when you are standing in a barn full of cows and sheep. What is shocking about these coffees is that they are actually sold.

On friday morning we drove from Nyeri to Ruiru to visit the Coffee Research Foundation.
We had just heard that they had released a new coffee varietal, called Batian (The name of the peak of Mt. Kenya,) that they spent 12 years developing. Batian is a new alternative to the not so tasty Ruiru 11 that the Research Foundation had developed in the 80′s. Both varietals are more resistant to Coffee Berry Disiease and Leaf Rust than the traditional varietals grown in Kenya, SL 28 and SL 34. The problem is that the best coffees from Kenya are normally coming from the SL varietals, so we were interested to taste the new Batian variety next to the Ruiru 11 and the SL 28 and SL 34.
When we arrived we got a tour of the CRF and also a presentation of what work they are doing there. Basically, it is a resource center for coffee in Kenya where they train farmers, analyze soil and fertilizers, develop new varietals and research and develop new agricultural practices.
The greatest part of the tour was their varietal museum. Here we got to see some amazing coffee trees, and their Coffea Ecxelsa and Liberica trees were the biggest coffee trees I have ever seen.(See biggest trees in pictures below)

They also had a lot of other varietals in their museum plot, but you can see more of them in the slide show on the bottom of this page.

After the tour we headed in to the CRF cupping lab to taste coffee. We were presented with 4 unnamed samples that we cupped before the coffees were revealed as Batian, SL 28, Ruiru 11 and a cup with a blend of Ruiru 11 and SL 28.

It turned out that I actually liket the Batian varietal the best. It was by far the sweetest and most floral and fruity. My second favourite was the blend and my 3rd favourite was the SL28. This was an unusual result but not too surprising as we were already were sceptical of the setup of the cupping. To be honest, all the coffees were very dark roasted and roasted on the same day as the cupping. The SL28 was not a good SL 28; it was both baggy and from the west part of Kenya which traditionally does not grow the best coffees. In fact all the coffees were grown in different parts of the country, so we suspected the CFR guys to set up a cupping to favour the Batian varietal as they have spent 12 years developing it. The only thing that did not surprise me with the cuping was that the Ruiru 11 was the worst coffee. This was flat and woody and very bitter.

I asked to get some samples of the Batian coffee to take home so I could cup it next to our SL28/34 from Tekangu and Mugaga, but our tour guide at CRF would not let me have it.
Regardless of that, I am very much looking forward to tasting the Batian varietal in the future as it seemed that a lot of farmers were already implementing the new plant in their fields. Hopefully it will not compromise the quality of Kenyan coffee in the future.

I will be going back to Kenya in February to buy and taste the coffees that is picked right now. More on that next year.

Tim and I have already spent 6 days in Kenya together with our dear friend and customer Anders Valde (the first World Aeropress Champion) and our good friend and coffee colleague from Solberg & Hansen, Alexander Scheen Jensen.

Our trip started on Monday where we spent the day at Dorman’s cupping lab, tasting the freshly harvested coffee from the fly crop in Kenya, followed by a tour at their green coffee mill and roasting factory in Nairobi. Although one of the coffees had already been sold for over USD 7 per lb. None of the coffees were spectacular.

On Tuesday we visited CMS (Coffee Management Servives) in Ruiru. CMS is both a marketing agent and a technical and agriculture resource for the cooperatives we buy from . The manager of CMS, Mr. Kamau Kuria has personally been in charge of making sure the money we donated through our drying table project was spent in the best possible way. We were lucky to have a one hour meeting with the ever busy Mr. Kamau, and  he gave us vital info about the current harvest and the prognosis of next years coffee production in Kenya.
To sum up what he said; the severe rains during the flowering period has lead to less flowering making yields about 40% less than last years crop, which was also very low. The current prognosis of total production in the main harvest this year is only at 34.000 metric tons.  However, the amount of AA and elephant beans is much higher due to a lot of rain during the expansion phase of the coffee cherries. This means there will be a lot of good quality coffee coming out of Kenya, but the yields are unfortunately very low, so there will be a lot of fighting and high prices to expect for the best lots.

In the afternoon we headed for Nyeri which was our main destination for this trip.

Wednesday morning we got a brief tour of the Central Kenya Coffee Mill where all our coffees are being dry milled before export.

After the tour we went to visit the Tekangu Cooperative Society and to finally do the official hand over of the drying tables we have funded through our drying table project on our 3 year anniversary. The board of directors greeted us with coffee and sweet potato complimented with good conversation. As this was my 3rd time visiting it was great to listen to the improvements done and future plans they had made to develop the coffee quality and infrastructure on their factories. The coffee we bought from Tekangu this year came from the Karogoto factory, so we had decided to place the new drying tables there.

As we went up to see the new tables, i was stunned and a bit shocked when the tables revealed themselves behind a row of trees protecting the Karogoto factory. Not only had CMS (Coffee Management Services) managed to build 8 new tables for the money we donated, but the tables were huge and the quality was extremely good.

Here are the most important features of the new tables:

• Galvanized steel net to prevent rust hence a longer lasting drying surface.
• Ergonomic height of the table to make it easier for workers as they don’t need to bend over to work on the drying coffee.
• Extra steel wire for better support of the drying surface to prevent the net from sagging.
• Concrete fundaments to prevent the tables to sink into the ground.
• Angled edges at the end of the table to prevent workers from sitting on them as then they will more easily get ruined.
• Each table can dry 20 bags which is 1 metric ton of coffee. They can dry 8 tons at the same time with the 8 tables.

Normally the Tekangu cooperative would spend 10 to 12 years to build 8 new steel drying tables, so the board members of Tekangu and especially the production manager of the Karogoto factory were very happy for the donation of the new tables.

The vice chairman of Tekangu made me promise to thank all our customers in Norway and C. Dorman in Kenya who supported the project and made it possible to build these drying tables. I am also extremely happy to see that the project went so well, so a big thank you to all who supported it.

The best part of the whole project is that the factory manager at Karogoto promised us he will separate the coffee that gets dried on the new tables so that we will be able to taste the difference between the coffee dried on the new vs old tables. I can’t wait to taste the difference when I go back to Kenya in February and hopefully we will be able to buy the coffee if the quality is as expected.

Of course our trip did not end there. We have also done a lot of other great stuff down here in Kenya, but I will write about that in part 2 of this post next week. (some key topics for the next post: new varietal (Batian) released in Kenya, pictures of enormous Liberica and Excelsa coffee trees, cupping of different grades in Kenya, etc)

The total amount of money we managed to raise for the Tekangu drying table project is USD 4600,-

Hopefully this will be enough to build 5 tables.

Tim Varney and I will be going to Kenya in November to oversee the harvest and also to document the benefits of using these new drying tables.

A huge thank you to all our customers who contributed. It is much appreciated.