Fans of classic Kenyan coffees will be won over by the Waturi Estate. with its vibrant, zesty fruit flavours and intense aromatics. This is the second year we have featured coffee from Waturi Estate on our menu. Last year, we were blown away by the impressive PB (peaberry) harvest; this year's step up to AA grade is even more stunning.
David Murathe cultivates his SL varieties at Waturi Estate in Thika, Muranga. The farm sits at an elevation of 1800 masl. The high altitudes provide warm, sunny days and cool nights that promote sweet, dense cherry. Ongoing training and support from KenyaCof, our regional sourcing partners, has enabled David to improve yields and quality, which we are already seeing in our second year of purchasing; an exciting and encouraging sign for the years ahead.
Waturi is categorised as a small estate in Kenya. Traditionally, many farmers of this size in the country did not own processing equipment. Instead, they deliver cherry to a centralised cooperative-owned factory where their production is combined with others from their region. However, David owns a small wet mill where he can process his coffee, ensuring full traceability back to his farm. Even for farmers who may have their own processing set up, the dry-milling situation within Kenya does not serve small-to-medium-size farmers well. Dry mills have a lot of minimums, usually about 50 bags of parchment per lot, which is often unattainable for smaller farmers. Farmers merge their lots to meet these minimums, losing traceability, lowering their overall returns and removing the potential for name recognition and direct-trade relationship.
To cater for single producer lots that are very small, Kahawa Bora Mill (operated by KenyaCof) has a separate micro-lot milling line that was custom-made to hull lots as small as one bag at a time. This line allows growers to maintain their brand when selling their coffee. This is a push in the right direction for Kenyan growers to gain market access to quality-focused buyers overseas like Seven Seeds.