LEGACY RESERVE | Kiawamaruru, Kenya, Washed | AA

FARM/LOT NAME: Kiawamaruru Factory
ORIGIN : Mukurweini, Nyeri
PRODUCER : Ramukia FCS, 600+ farmers
VARIETAL : SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11, Batian
PROCESS : Washed Process
ELEVATION : 1765 M
SOIL TYPE : Red Volcanic
TASTING NOTES : Cranberry, Hibiscus Tea, Pink Rose, Sparkling Grapefruit Soda, Granny Smith

Kiawamururu Factory is multifaceted; they have a model farm where their agronomist helps educate farmers on best practices for growing high-quality coffee, how to head off pests without reverting to pesticide use, and a multitude of other subjects. Also made available to the cooperative’s members are coffee seedlings and coffee pulp to use as fertilizer. Besides the usual hardworking disc pulper, washing channels, fermentation, and soaking tanks, Kiawamaruru has wet tables where the wet coffee beans drain before being transferred to drying beds, a whole fleet (or herd?) of drying tables spread with parchment, and a 24,000 kg capacity parabolic greenhouse to dry the P1 (top-quality) coffees without needing to cover them every night or every time rain threatens.

The place hums with quiet voices as farmers bring in their morning’s picking, walking up from the valley or in through the rusty aqua gates to the sorting shed where they pour their half-full grocery bags onto tarps and weed out over and under-ripe cherries, defects and debris before taking them to be checked for quality and weighed. Once the producers receive the receipt for their coffee, they upend their bags of cherries into the huge slanted collection bin where they bounce and roll to rest against the last farmer's bag full.

True community lots, these bring to the cup a tangible flavor of the rich red Kenya hills, the verdant vegetation which is almost jungle but is called “forest” by Kenyans, and the magic of the blue, blue sky.