Dec 1

2015 Specialty Coffee Advent Calendar

Mutheka Muthuaini AA – Jacu Coffee Roastery

Origin: Nyeri, Kenya
Producers: 200 smallholders in the surrounding areas deliver cherries to the wet mill
Wet mill: Muthuaini Factory
Cooperative: Mutheka Farmers Cooperative Society
Elevation: 1700-1800 masl
Grade: AA refers to the bean size. AA in Kenya is screen size above 17
Cultivar: Mainly SL 34 and SL28
Process: All coffees are pulped, dry fermented, washed and sundried
Roast Date: 18 Nov
Roaster: Jacu Coffee Roastery

Taste Profile: Medium intense, ripe red berries, almonds, spicy and sweet

Cherries are hand sorted for unripes and overripes by the farmers before they go in to production. A 3-disc Agaarde pulping machine removes the skin and pulp. The coffees are graded by density in to 3 grades by the pulper. Grade 1 and 2 go separately to fermentation. Grade 3 is considered low grade. The coffee is fermented for 24-36 hour under close shade. After fermentation the coffees are washed and again graded by density in washing channels.

After washing, the coffee is sun dried 12 to 20 days on African drying beds. Time depends on weather conditions. Coffees are covered in plastic during midday and at night.  The coffee is grown in mainly nitisol, red volcanic soil. Nitisols occur in highlands and on volcanic steep slopes. They are developed from volcanic rocks and have better chemical and physical properties than other tropical soils.

This coffee is sourced based on its unique flavor profile and standout cup quality. It is carefully selected out of a broad range of coffees cupped just after the harvest. The coffee is purchased directly from the producer, and has justified a premium price due to its attributes and clean cup, which are a result of good processing practices. The Cooperative wet mill qualifies to our ethical and environmental standards and they have the required systems for quality control on processing, grading and lot separation.

The Muthuaini Factory (wetmill) is one wet mill in the “Mutheka Farmers’ Cooperative Society Society” in Nyeri in Central Kenya. Nyeri is located on the slopes of Mount Kenya and together with the neighboring region Kirinyaga it’s known for coffees with most intense, complex, and flavor-dense cup profiles world wide. It is made up of mainly smallholder farms, each with some 100 trees. The farmers are organized in Cooperative Societies that acts as umbrella organizations for the Factories (wetmills), where the smallholders deliver their coffee cherries for processing.

Nyeri has a mix of smallholders and block holders with small to medium farms. The ones that don’t have their own processing equipment deliver cherries to their local Cooperative. Most coffees are grown under shade from Gravelia and Muringa Alloevella trees. Many of the farmers are surrounded by several wetmills. They are free to choose where they want to deliver their cherries as members. Due to the traditional auction system in Kenya, quality is rewarded with higher prices. The better factories will then attract more farmers by producing coffee getting the highest prices, as well as giving high payback rate to the farmers. This can in some cases be about 90% of the sales price after cost of marketing and preparation is deducted.

Jacu Coffee Roastery

Jacu Coffee Roastery is serious about the ethics of our trade. To ensure that coffee farmers and workers receive proper pay, we prefer to keep contact with and buy directly from farmers, or highly trusted distributors.  Jacu Coffee Roastery was established in 2011. Like the jacu bird, we pick and roast only the best beans. We look for great plantations, optimal processing, and the roasting profiles which will make the most out of each bean. Brenneriet vårt er lokalisert i en renovert trafostasjon som er bygd for å være et kaffebrenneri og et fine-art galleri. For oss er sammensmeltingen mellom moderne kunst og kaffe helt naturlig, og til nå har vi huset utstillinger av 3 av Norges mest anerkjente kunstnere- midt mellom kaffebrenner, vekter  og kaffemaskiner.

http://www.jacu.no