Gachatha AB - Kenya

• Origin: Gachatha - Kenya
• Cooperative: Gachatha Coffee Factory
• Producer: Jane Nyawira
• Harvest: 2025
• Process: Washed

• Altitude: 2100 masl

  Varietal: SL 28 - Ruiru 11 - Batian

Description: Blackcurrant, black tea and lime.

ABOUT THE FARM.

After picking, smallholder farmers bring the ripe cherries to the factory, where the skin and pulp are removed in what is known as the wet process. The nearest water source and the factory rely on electric pumps to move the water before it is used for processing, and the water is recirculated to conserve it. The factory uses a disc pulper with three sets of discs to remove the skin and fruit from the inner parchment layer that protects the green coffee bean.

After pulping, the coffee is fermented overnight to break down the sugars, then cleaned, soaked and spread out on raised drying tables. Time on the tables depends on the weather, the ambient temperature and the total volume being processed.

Hulling machinery removes the parchment layer (endocarp) from wet-processed coffee. Hulling dry-processed coffee means removing the entire dried husk (exocarp, mesocarp and endocarp) from the dried cherries. Polishing is an optional step in which the silver skin left on the beans after hulling is removed by machine. Although polished coffee is considered superior to unpolished, in practice there is little difference between the two. Grading and sorting are done by size and weight, and the beans are also checked for colour defects and other imperfections.

The beans are graded by passing them through a series of screens. They are also sorted pneumatically with a jet of air to separate heavy beans from light ones.

Bean size is usually expressed on a scale from 10 to 20. The number is the diameter of a round hole in 64ths of an inch: a size 10 bean is roughly the size of a hole 10/64 of an inch across, and a size 15 bean measures 15/64 of an inch.

Finally, defective beans are removed by hand or by machine: those that fall short because of unacceptable size or colour, over-fermentation, insect damage or incomplete hulling.