This is the coffee that we won Nordic Roaster 2010 with. This lot was also awarded 4th place in Dorman’s Yearly “Best of Kenya” competition.

Mugaga is a large cooperative with 5 factories (wet mills), each with their own members that are so called “small holder farmers” posessing about 1 hectar of land each where they grow maize, banana, coffee and other crops.
The 5 factories are Kagumoini, Kiieni, Gatina, Gathugu and Kiamabara where the coffee is collected, depulped, washed, fermented and dried. Our coffee was processed on the Kiamabara factory.

In january 2010 we visited all the Mugaga factories and also their main office. The secretary manager Mr. James Wachira showed us how they work and also what they are trying to improve. They are currently working to get both Nespresso AAA certification and fair trade certification which are programmes that focuses on sustainability and quality.

Mugaga is therefore a well developed cooperative that focuses on producing quality coffee and get high prices for this coffee in order to improve the quality of life of it’s members.   They provide credits for their farmers in order for them to pay for farm input and paying school fees for their children throughout the year. The members are trained on a regular basis in sustainable farming practices and also in how to handle and apply pesticides, etc.

The members are provided with documentation about how much their coffee was sold for so that they know how much money they can expect for the coffee they delivered to the cooperative. In addition the coop’s marketing agent provides us and the farmers with documents on all money transfers so that all transactions are made rightfully according to the law. This is important as Kenya is struggelign with corruption which has lead to farmes not always getting payed what is rightfully their money, and although we bought the coffee directly from the Coop, it is good to know that the money goes to the rightful owner.

Mugaga won the 2nd place in the 2009 East African Fine Coffees Assn. award for coffee of the year.
They also recieved an award for being the cooperative that payed their members the highest average price per kilo of ripe cherries. (KES 40,- pr. kg)
The factory Kagumoini still holds the record for highest price on green coffee ever sold in Kenya. The coffee was purchased by Singapore Airlines in 2008 for 10 USD per. lb.

Info:

Cooperative: Mugaga FCS
Processing factory: Kiamabara
Lot size: 1860 kg
Producer: Several smallholders
Harvest: January 10
Origin: Konyu, Nyeri, Kenya.
Growing conditions: 1600-1700 msl. in red volcanic soil. Trees like
Gravellea, Macadamia and Eukalyptus are used to give shade for the coffee trees.
Botanical variety: SL 28 & SL 34
Process: The coffee is hand picked by the farmers and their families. After delivering the coffee to the different factories the good coffee cherries are separated from the inferior ones. The cherries are depulped, the beans are fermented and washed before they get dried on african elevated drying tables.

Taste description:
Smell of black currants and butter.  Ripe berrylike acidity.
Rich and juicy mouthfeel
Intense flavours of black currants, rose hips and raisins.
Refreshing and sweet finish.

Below is a slideshow from our Trip to kenya in 2010 and one from our 2009 trip on the bottom.
Click on full screen then on “show info” to get comments on the pictures.