Kenya Gatagua AA - 250 g

This year’s Gatagua AA has arrived at Mejselgatan, and for the third year in a row we’re ready to roast this wonderful coffee from the slopes of Mount Kenya to perfection.

Gatagua Farmers Cooperative Society is a relatively young cooperative located in Murang’a. They received their license in December 2019 and have since continuously refined their processes to produce coffee of the highest quality.

The cooperative is situated on the highly fertile southwestern slopes of Mount Kenya and on the eastern slopes of the Aberdare Mountains. The main harvest takes place from October to January each year, while the smaller harvest—known as the “fly crop”—runs from April to June.

Although the cooperative itself is new, the people behind it have extensive experience. They were previously part of a larger cooperative but chose to break away in order to gain control over their own production. Gatagua operates a single washing station, originally built in the 1960s. The station currently has greater capacity than needed, but the ambition is to grow into it as the cooperative develops.

At the most recent count, Gatagua had 609 active members—409 men and 200 women. The cooperative employs three full-time staff year-round, as well as approximately 20 seasonal workers during the harvest period.

As in most parts of Kenya, the varieties grown are a mix of older SL varieties and the newer Ruiru and Batian cultivars, which are becoming increasingly popular among farmers due to their higher yields and improved resistance to pests and diseases.

Coffee cherries are delivered to the washing station on the same day they are harvested and are soaked prior to pulping to remove floating defects. After pulping, the coffee undergoes its first fermentation overnight. The following day, the water is replaced with fresh water and the coffee is soaked for an additional night. After washing, the coffee is surface-dried for 6–8 hours before being moved to raised drying beds, where it dries for approximately 20 days until the desired moisture content is reached.

The photos are from our trip to Kenya in 2016 together with Per Nordby. The cupping photos are from Dormans’ cupping lab in Nairobi.

Flavor profile: Rhubarb lemonade, blackcurrant, citrus.