Kenya general information

By Morten Wennersgaard

Key info:

• Production pr year: about 50 thousand metric tons on average.
• Production is mainly divided in to areas in Central Kenya and Western Kenya
• Main areas Central Kenya: Kiambu, Nyeri, Kirinyaga, Embu, Meru, Muranga and Thika
• Main areas Western Kenya: Nakuru, Bungoma, Kisii, Kitale
• Number of Cooperative societies: About 550
• Number of washing stations under the Societies: about 1100 wetmills
• Number of small Estates with less than 20 Hectares: about 3000
• Number of Estates larger than 20 Hectares: About 300
• Coffee growers: about 700 000 farmers (smallholders)
• Average size of smallholder farms: 0,4 Hectars
• Average tree pr hectar : Less than 1000
• Average yield pr tree, small holders: 0,5 kg of greens
• Varietals: Main varietals are SL 28, SL34, K7, Ruiru 11, Batian (new)
• Altitudes: up to 2200 masl. Majority between 1500-1900 masl
• Rainfall:  From 1000 – 1500 mm annualy
• Main Harvest: From September – December
• Fly/early crop: From May – July
• Process: Pulped on disc pulpers, dry fermented at traditional washing stations and Estates.
• Standard fermentation: Up to 30 hours dry fermentation in concrete tanks. Washed and graded before soaked  10 – 24 hours in clean water.
• Drying: At African beds on jute clothing or shade net on top of wire mesh. Drying time 10-15 days.
• For more info visit: www.nordicapproach.no

Gikanda Cooperative Society, the umbrella organization for Gitchathaini, Kangocho and Ndaroini Factories (wet mills)

General information

Kenya lies at longitude 34 – 42 degrees and latitudes 5 degrees.

It covers an area of 580 thousand square kilometers. There are about 43 million inhabitants. The two main coffee growing areas are in the surroundings of Mt. Kenya in Central Kenya as well the west all the way towards Mt. Elgon at the  border of Uganda.

Kenya can produce up to 65 000 tons of green coffee, but it varies from year to year. Kenya produces fully washed coffees only, and is considered by many as the world’s number one quality producer. There are more than 700 thousand coffee farmers (smallholders) representing about 55% of the production. The rest is mostly Estates. There are about 3000 small estates with less than 20 hectares, 300 larger ones and about 1100 cooperative wet mills. Coffee exports counts for about 10% of Kenya’s income.

Cherries going in to the hopper before pulping.

History

Coffee plants were at first brought in to Tanzania by the French missionaries from Bourbon Island. At the same time Scottish missionaries were active in Kenya and were experimenting with Mocha seedlings from Ethiopia. Together the two groups introduced the two strains Mocha and Bourbon. It supposedly hybridized in the Kilimanjaro area into a new varietal known as French Mission.

The coffee came to Nairobi in 1897 and was well cultivated in the next ten years.

Around 1910 the colonists living outside Nairobi started to plant trees in areas like Kiambu and Thika.

By 1920 coffee became Kenya’s main export crop. During the 1930s the coffee industry went through major changes as it went from being a colonial experiment to a major industry.

They started to experiment with different marketing strategies and cooperative systems.

Some of the planters started the Thika planters Cooperative Union that later became the Kenya Planters Cooperative Union. The KPCU became dominant voice of the Kenyan coffee planters. They have played a major role as marketing agents and dry millers up to now, but have had some challenges in recent years, and basically went out of business a couple of years ago.

In 1932 the Coffee board of Kenya was established. They established the coffee auction in 1934. In the late 1940s they established a nationwide grading system and introduced the mechanical huller to remove the parchment.

In 1934 the colonial government allowed indigenous people to plant coffees under strict regulations, but it didn’t work well. From 1946 they encouraged Kenyans to start planting cash crops. After 1950 the smallholder sector picked up. After a while it dominated the KPCU. They started to build wetmills from the 1960s.

In 1978 the smallholder sector surpassed the large estates in terms of production, and still accounts for more than 50% of the total production.

The cherry in the bottom of the picture is a typical excample of CBD (coffee berry disease)

Varietals

They started early in Kenya to experiment with varietals. Around 1910 they experimented with the Tanzanian (Tanganyika) varietals and mixed them with varietals from Mysore in India. This hybrid is now known as Kent.

In the 1920s they used the French Mission as a base to create something called “Kenyas Selected”.

In 1934 they started to develop new varietals in the Scot Laboratories. They discovered a variety in the Mondul area in Tanzania that had good resistance against drought and pests. They also gathered trees of the original French Mission and other varietals that seemed to perform well. About 42 different trees of the French Mission and different Mocha varieties were selected in the 1930s based on their yield, quality and resistance to pests, drought and diseases. The new varietals from the Scot Laboratories was prefixed as SL. They started with SL 1 created from the “Kenya Selected” and developed a lot of different SL’s continued with SL 2 , 3, 4 and so on, all created from different varietals based on French Mission, Bourbon and Mocha (Typica). Finally they ended up with the SL 28 and SL 34 that are still widely used.

SL 28 was selected fro a single tree from a Tanzanian drought resistance variety, and have some Ethiopian influence as well as traits from a tree from Sudan’s Boma plateau.

It has a broad copper tip leaf, bold beans, but are pretty low yielding. It’s known for delicate and complex flavor attributes.

SL 34 came from a single selection of French Mission at an Estate in Nairobi. It’s similar to the old “Kenya Selected” in appearance. It has been highly appreciated for  it’s high yield and shows good resistance to droughts.

K7, another well-known variety was also selected from the French Mission, and are known for great immunity towards diseases. Still, not as much appreciated for cup quality as the SL’s.

Ruiru11 was created in the 1980’s. The goal was to create a high yield plant resistant to leaf rust and CBD (coffee berry disease). They mixed “Hibrido de Timor” (a Robusta/Arabica hybrid) with “Rume Sudan” from the Boma plateau as well as with SL 28 and SL 34 for improved cup quality.

Blue Mountain was brought in from Jamaica and planted in western Kenya around 1913. It hasn’t been too successful in Kenya, but you can still find it in the Western parts.

Batian is a new high yielding disease resistant variety that was released by the Coffee Research Foundation in Kenya in 2010. It’s supposed to improve cup qualities compared to Ruiru 11, and should be more equal to the SL 28. It’s back crossed from SL 28 and SL 34 and include SL4, N39, N30, Hibrido de Timor, Rume Sudan, and K7 .

Diseases

The biggest challenge is probably the fungus causing the “Coffee Berry Disease” known as CBD. The fungus lives in the bark of the coffee tree and produces spores which attack the coffee cherries. The coffee cherries become dark, almost black in color and if it spreads at a farm or estate it can be devastating. It can be treated with copper formulations or organic fungicides. Still, this is too expensive for most farmers.

Another other challenge is leaf rust. It creates red/brown spots on the leaves. Coffee leaf rust is spread by wind and rain from spores from lesions on the underside of the plant. It can also be treated with expensive copper-based fungicides.

The coffee regions

A smallholder picking coffee in Nyeri, Central Kenya.

Central Kenya

Most of the well-known Kenyan coffees are from Central Kenya grown at estates in the Kiambu/Thika area or in Nyery/Kirinyaga by smallholders. Other areas in Central Kenya are Embu, Meru, Muranga.

Nyeri in particular is known for the most complex flavor attributes, but neighboring district Kirinyaga does have coffees with great potential as well. In general you can find fantastic coffees from most areas in this region if you know where to look. Still, in our opinion Nyeri has the highest density of wetmills producing overall high quality coffees. Most of them have really good growing conditions and altitudes as well as good quality control at the wetmills.

Western Kenya

You have areas such as Nakuru and Baringo not so far from Central Kenya, but there are also regions far west such as Bungoma, Kitale and Busia at Mt. Elgon.

There is a lot of development in the west right now, and some exporters are investing to access more coffees and get better control on the quality. Production is lower than in Central Kenya and the Cooperatives not as well organized, but the potential is great. There are a lot of smallholders at high altitudes. You have both traditional estates, well-established traditional cooperatives as well as new ones.

We will be looking in to the west, and have already discovered some great coffees from the Mt. Elgon area.

Farmers sorting cherries at the factory before the coffee is accepted, weighed and processed at the mill.

Farming and production

The coffee sector is divided into smallholder cooperative societies, small estates with less than 20 hectares, and large estates.

Cooperative societies and their wet mills represents more than 50% of the Kenyan coffee production. In our opinion you can find coffees from some of these producers greater than almost anything else worldwide.

The societies are the umbrella organization for one or several wetmills. Typically you have the Tekangu society that represents the wetmills Tegu, Karogoto and Ngunguru. The wet mills in Kenya are called Factories, e.g. Karogoto Factory.

The Tekangu society will monitor the financing and will be the seller of the coffee from the factories. Still the individual wet mills will be responsible for production, management and overhead cost. The farmers can choose where they want to deliver their cherries, and if a wet mill does well, and is able to give a good second payment to the farmers they will attract more cherry suppliers.

A typical wet mill can have about 1000 farmers delivering cherries. They give a small advance payment at delivery. The better and well-managed wet mills are able to give more than 85% of the sales price back to the farmers. That’s after cost of milling and marketing is deducted.

Most wet mills use traditional disc pulpers before dry fermentation, washing in channels, soaking in clean water, drying at raised tables and conditioning in bins at the warehouse.

Small Estates are located all over but are more represented in certain areas (for instance, they are more common in Kirinyaga than Nyeri). They can have amazing coffees, but as they are smaller in terms of production they often blend coffees randomly according to what they have to make a full consignment. This can in some cases be hit and miss. They normally process their coffees with small and modified pulpers of various quality. Normally they follow the same steps with dry fermentation, soaking and drying, but it can be more random according to their capacity when the cherries comes in.

 

The larger estates are mainly located in the outskirts of Nairobi. They do dense planting, high maintenance plant treatment and irrigation. They are able to produce up to 1,5 kg of greens pr tree, about three times of what smallholders produce on the average. Many of them outsource the management to professional providers of management services. The coffees are pulped at traditional disc pulpers, dry fermented, washed and soaked, and dried on raised tables before conditioned in bins constructed by wood and wire mesh.

You can find good coffees among the products from the Estates, but in general they are in our opinion missing the flavor intensity and complexity you can find in other Kenyans.

Coffees pulped at a Agaarde 4 disc pulper. The parchment is sorted by density after the skin is removed. The densest beans, P1, goes down to the bottom and is pumped up on the left hand side. The semi dense, P2, is separated on the right, and the floaters comes out with the water in the middle.

Processing and drying

We will use the smallholder and cooperative structure to describe the process, though except from picking and cherry delivery, the process is more or less similar for most producers no matter if it is a cooperative or a large estate.

Cherry delivery

Is done at the wet mills or at collection centers. When the farmers arrive at the place for delivery they would normally have to empty their bags on the floor (on a cover) to sort out unripe, overripe and CBD infected cherries. A supervisor inspects the cherries before they are weighed and the farmers get a small up front payment for the delivery. The delivery from every farmer is registered and they get a receipt for the amount. This will be the base for their right to payment after the coffee is sold. Some farmers are organized in groups or associations to be able to cooperate on investments for soil inputs and necessary equipment for farming.

Pulping

After the coffees are weighed they go in to the main cherry hopper above the pulper. Some wet mills have a separate hopper for the low grades such as under and over ripes.

When they start the pulper the cherries go by gravity in to the machine.

They normally use disc pulpers such as old three disc Agaarde or similar brands. As long as you change the discs from time to time they can work perfectly well. It’s also important to adjust the pulper to remove the pulp (fruit) properly without damaging the parchment.

The parchment flows from the discs with water allowing the parchment to be separated by density. The densest beans will sink and are pumped straight through a channel to the fermentation tank as P1 (parchment 1), the semi dense will go to a separate fermentation tank as P2. The floaters, P3, are considered as low grades and will normally go straight to the drying tables.

P1 and P2 are dry fermented for about 20 hours.

Fermentation

After pulping, the coffees are dry fermented (water is drained off) in painted concrete tanks. Normally they are fermented for 18-24 hours. Many factories do intermediate washing every 6 – 8 hours, meaning they add water, stir up the parchment and drain it again.

Washing and soaking  

When fermentation is completed and the mucilage is disolved the parchment gets washed in washing channels and graded again by density. The lighter beans will float off and the remaining dense parchment will normally be soaked in clean water up to 24 hours.

Coffees are washed and graded by density in washing channels before they go to the soaking tanks.

Drying and conditioning

After soaking, the coffees are skin dried at hessian mesh mats for skin drying up to one day. This is to quickly get off the moisture at the surface of the parchment.

After a day the coffees are moved to the traditional drying tables. The coffee is then normally dried on a surface of jute clothing or shade net on top of the wire mesh.

The parchment is constantly moved as they sort out defected parchment and beans.

The coffee has to be covered with plastic during the hottest periods of the day, normally between 12 pm and 2 pm as well as during the night.

The drying time varies between 12 and 20 days depending on weather and rainfall.

The moisture target is 11-12%.

They also have a tradition of intermediate conditioning. Depending on the capacity on the drying tables and the producer’s philosophy, some of them take the parchment in to the conditioning bins at what they call the black stage, when the coffees are stabilized at around 16%. They can be conditioned for some weeks before they are placed on the drying tables again to finish of the drying.

Drying at African beds. Takes about two weeks.

Dry milling and marketing

Even if you can buy coffees directly from the producers these days, bypassing the auction, the system is still based on the same structure as before.

A producer normally has an agreement with a marketing agent and a dry mill.

Whenever he has a consignment ready he delivers the parchment to the mill. This could typically be 200 bags of parchment, equivalent to about 130 bags of exportable greens. The producer is still the owner of the coffee, the miller will charge a fixed fee for the milling and the marketing agent will have a margin based on percentages from the sales.

The coffee will be milled and graded in to bean size and different qualities. The mill and marketing agent normally cooperate and the coffee will then often be cupped, and presented in the auction catalogue by the marketing agent. At this point it can also be marketed and sold directely.

Parchment conditioned at the black stage, around 16%, before they go back to the tables again, or after the coffees are dried down to about 12%.

Milling

The dry mills in Kenya works very well and are highly professional and efficient. The coffees goes through their standard grading systems:

E (Elephant beans) = screen 19 and up, AA = 17/18, AB = 16/17, PB = Peaberries.

The rest is lower grades such as C = below14, TT and T is the low-density beans over and under screen 14.

In the mill everything is kept separate for the auction, and it’s a great opportunity to cup through the different grades from the same outturns and consignments.

At this point we are able to do extensive cupping at the mill to be able to pick out our coffees before they enter the auction catalogue.

Coffees milled and graded at Central Kenya Coffee Mill before they enter the auction catalogue or are sent to Nairobi for preparation after direct sales.

Purchase, Export and transparency

Whenever we have found a coffee and want to commit, we will have the marketing agent negotiate the price directly with the producers (in our case the Cooperative Society as we normally buy from the smallholders cooperatives).

As soon as we have agreed on the price the coffee will be moved to the warehouse in Nairobi to get handpicked and packaged in Grain Pro or Vacuum according to our specifications. The coffees will sit in the warehouse until we have a confirmed shipment leaving Mombasa.

The good thing with the system in Kenya is that everything is more or less separated into small lots and different grades. By tradition and through the auction system each coffees has been evaluated separately and get a value and individual price based on the cup quality and attributes. This gives the producers great incentives to focus on quality control, as it will normally pay off.

If you buy coffees direct through the second window, the producers expect to get prices above the average auction prices at present time.

In addition the system is transparent as everybody knows what’s going back to the society after cost of milling and marketing is deducted.

There have been issues with payment from some marketing agents to the Societies, and from the Societies back to the farmers, but we strive to work with Cooperative Societies that are able to document what’s going back to the producers. In fact many of the more serious Societies and factories are competing, getting cherries in from the same areas, and are putting effort and pride in giving the best payback to their farmers. Some of the Coops we work with have been able to pay up to 90% back to the farmers.

 

Sales, purchasing and shipment

Sales and purchases

We are already starting to get orders and pre sell coffees. Thanks to everybody who’s supporting us and believe in what we do! We will start selling volumes down to one bag as soon as we have the webshop in place. As for now we normally do orders at minimum one pallet. We don’t have a good system in place yet, but we’ll try to keep track manually. Normally a purchase or order will be followed up by an order confirmation that works as a contract. If you’re a new client you would have to fill inn your information such as billing and delivery address as well as confirm the quantities and coffees. We will then send out the invoice and as soon as the coffee is paid it can potentially be sent or collected by your transporter. If the coffees haven’t arrived Oslo yet and you want to make a reservation we will estimate a time for delivery and invoice will be sent when the coffee arrives in Oslo and distributed asap!

Payment terms and shipping

At this point we have a hard time financially and are normally not able to do financing and warehousing for clients. Still it’s something we can discuss as we get in to business, but as our own terms and financing situation are not that great it’s something we want to avoid if we can.

We do also need up front payment for the same reasons. In the end we hope this benefits our clients, as we need it to buy new and exciting coffees and would also have to calculate some risk and losses in to the pricing as well otherwise.

Warehousing is done at a third party warehouse in Oslo with a distributor called Nordcarrier.

Our coffee prices are always ex works, but shipment and custom clearance can be organized by us through Nordcarrier on the buyers cost. Nordcarrier should be competitive on pricing to most places in Europe, but depending on where the coffee goes it could be worthwhile to check if you have local distributors with trucks going back and forth to Norway. Freight rates from Norway are not normally more expensive than from other destinations in Europe.

Coffee samples

We have a lot of sample requests from roasters around in Europe. We really appreciate the interest, and are sorry for not being able to distribute to much at this point. So far we haven’t received enough volume of greens from the coffees that’s on its way. It will for sure be a lot easier after the coffees has arrived in our warehouse. We have received some amounts, like from Kenya, but not even close to what we need to please everybody. We are working on a web solution where samples of all coffees in stock can be purchased. Unfortunately sending out samples is pretty expensive, and especially if you don’t know if it will create any sales. Still we will send out promotional stuff from time to time, and if I know you guys have serious interest in specific products it can be distributed. We will also try to offer roasted samples for those who prefer that.

In general we want to spend the next year getting to know all of our potential clients better, and understand their market and their needs. This will be done by touring Europe, host cuppings in Norway, and be present at coffee events. First up will be SCAE in Vienna.

Now to begin with I feel more comfortable if I understand your profiles and are able to present every coffee my self, as well as I want to get calibrated with our clients not to waste time or money for any of us by sending out samples that are not of interest. One thing I have learned in the past is that even if we can agree up on what are truly great coffees the markets are different and so are the needs, price range and preferences.

May 2012 offer list

We are just about to get our first coffees in to Oslo. The fisrt box of El Salvador and Kenya is allready in port and we will do custom clearence and reload the containers this week. Some coffees are pre – sold, but there is still some good amounts of great stuff available. Next coffees in will be some beautiful Limu’s from Ethiopia as well as more Salvador beginning of June.

This is our current list of whats in stock right now and estimatet arrivals on our purchased coffees so far

Click on the link below for PDF version.

Offer list May 2012

Rwanda/Burundi 2012

By Morten WennersgaardJust finished of this years “early crop” sourcing trip to Rwanda and Burundi. It’s still a little early to nail all our coffees, but I already found some beautiful batches of smaller quantities and it’s very promising for what’s to come. I had a few coffees on the cupping table the last few days that’s probably the best stuff I ever had in Rwanda. Found some great coffees from some new Coops in Burundi as well that we hopefully will follow up and purchase from.

Typical traditional well organized washingstations in Nyamasheke, Rwanda. Discpulpers, fermentation and soaking tanks, and drying tables.

I started this trip Wednesday the 25^th, about two weeks ago visiting some new washing stations in the East, then went to the west to Kibuye and Nyamasheke. From there I went to Nyamagabe in the south where we have some interesting projects together with a producer.I went down to Burundi by car. Spent a day meeting people in Bujumbura, before I headed up north again to visit Burundian producers. Gathered a lot of samples that I brought with me back to Kigali. Spent the last four days cupping and recupping  about 100 Rwandan and Burundian coffees, mostly daily lots from private washing stations and Coopreatives we are interested in. Met with our exporters as well to see if we can get some early shipments this year of the fresh crop.

Farmer in Burundi delivering cherries by bike to the Cooperative.

Rwanda

For most areas it’s a good yield this year. Even if the volumes are up and the coffee market is down in general cherry prices are still relatively good for the farmers. It’s also because it’s big competition in some areas. Even if competition can create some problems on cherry quality it’s good for the farmers. The problem is that when producers are desperate for cherries it’s hard to be selective and refuse to buy ripe cherries only as the farmers will sell their coffees to a different washing station, or even worse, do home processing. There has been some drought during the maturation period in some areas and I heard some rumors about quality being low this year because of that. From what I have cupped so far I would say it’s the opposite compared to last year. I have never had some many great cups on the table this early in Rwanda before, and I am pretty sure our coffees will be standouts this year.

There are a couple of washing stations in Nyamasheke and Kibuye, both in the western province that we will work with. They have great altitude and right now the management will probably be better than ever. It’s a new project initiated by Dormans Coffee ltd from Kenya and CMS (Coffee management Services) from Kenya. They are implementing good systems for cherry selection, processing and quality control. They will also do farmer-training programs and the farmers get second payments from the premiums we pay.

Woman at washingstation sorting out underripes and defected parchment while it’s still wet. It’s very important to reduce risk of potato flavors as it’s normally caused by beans that are defected by insect damage. These are easier seen while the coffee is still wet after soaking.

We have also just started a project in the southern region with a producer called Samuel Muhirwa, where we are separating out small volumes from different mountains and hillsides surrounding the washing stations of Buf Remera and Buf Nyaruzisa. All in altitudes from 1800 – 2000 meters. It’s amazingly big differences in flavors from the one hill to the other in the same area, and I believe working like this with lot separation on the washing stations will reveal a lot of great Rwandan coffees over the next years. I personally had my best Rwandan ever on the cupping table from one of these micro lots. Our plan is to produce 50 -75 bags from two different hills (communities)We have access to some other great stuff through RTC (Rwanda Trading Company). Currently a cooperative in the south as well as other potential stunners.

Soaking of micro lots devided by area and hillsides around Buf Remera Coffee Washingstation. Some of the best Rwandans I have ever tasted was resently processed here.

Burundi

I haven’t been as active in Burundi the last few years as in Rwanda. I am now narrowing it down to certain areas, and washing stations/Coops we want to work with. So far it seems like there is coffees from Kayanza in the North that really performs well for us, but here as well in Rwanda it’s still early for the higher altitudes. Last year I had some super nice coffees from the south as well that will be followed up.

There are a lot of changes going on in Burundi these days. There are many of the state owned coffee washing stations that’s auctioned out, inviting the private sector to invest in coffee. There has been a USAID program, DAI, going for some years that’s ending this October. They have done a lot of good work on the ground on everything from agronomy training, developed new standards for processing and established new Coops. They have also been very supportive to help potential buyers get around and source coffees. It will be interesting to see where the coffee industry in Burundi goes from here. The structure and processing at the washing stations works well in general, you can find coffees with fantastic flavors and characters but there are some challenges on exports and milling, basically because there’s not many to choose from. Still, I had a very good meeting with the manager of the mill we will use and it was promising. We just have to take decitions on  our coffees asap, not to risk coffees stuck in line for milling when all other coffees are supposed to be milled and shipped.

Picked up a lot of samples from the warehouses at the washingstations as well as I got samples of the first pickings from the ones I already know we will work with. Cupped and recupped several times. Did finalize a few, but it also gave a great indication of what to expect this year.

We are hoping to finalize most of our coffees in the region during the next two months and get most of it shipped by July. Most coffees will be shipped to Oslo and distributed spot. Still if there is interest of full containers for FOB direct shipments we have access to good volumes of supernice qualities from some washingstations.

A webcore washingstation in Burundi where they have a new Penagos eco pulper (with demucilager) and a traditional discpulper.
As coffees from the Penagos can remove the mucilage mechanically at different levels and dont necessarily need to much fermentation, they are experimenting with both processes from the same pickings. Interesting!

Nordic Approach update

It’s been a while since we have posted on this blog. The reason for that is simply the fact that there has been a lot of traveling as well as a lot of non-coffee related stuff to deal with. As Nordic Approach is a new company there is a lot of strategically and structural things to be implemented. That goes for everything from financing, accounting and audits to warehousing and general administration.

To give you an idea of where we are heading I have listed some things we have worked with below.

Design and Logo

We are about to release our company profile, design and logo. It should be finalized within the next month.

Web and web shop

We are currently working on a web shop solution for online sales of small quantities of green coffee. You will be able to buy volumes down to one bag or box. All purchases for less than a pallet will have to be done online. You can also purchase samples, and volumes down to ½ kg of any coffee. We will also offer roasted samples of the coffees available. All info on the products will be on the web as well as Flickr for downloads of photos. The web shop will be launched during May.

As we can’t afford to have staff this first year, doing online sales will make it more streamlined as we will be travelling a lot in origin to follow up coffees. I do also believe it’s easier and more efficient for our clients.

Warehousing

We have just finalized an agreement with a third party warehouse in Oslo. It’s with a distribution company called Nordcarrier that will also assure effective and competitive transport of coffee throughout Europe. That goes for those who don’t want to buy coffees FOB. We have our own assigned space in the warehouse to fully be in control of our inventory. The warehouse is temperature stable so there should be no issues regarding inappropriate storage conditions. We are currently working out transport rates for different destinations and issues regarding custom clearance.

Budgets and business plan

We would really like to build a model with a 100% transparent and predictable pricing system. To be able to do so we have worked a lot on our business plan and budgets to figure out a pricing system that works for all parties, i.e. for the producers, us as an importer/coffee provider and our clients. To buy coffees, keep inventory and sell coffees spot requires control of certain factors, specially as the coffee market today is very volatile. We have to build trust towards our financial partner regarding the trading model to access credits for our purchases.

We will release the model soon as well as our buying criteria’s, terms and philosophy.

Coffees

The first coffees are  already on their way to Oslo. We have so far been contracting coffees from great suppliers and producers in Ethiopia, Kenya, El Salvador and are just about to finalize some small quantities from Guatemala and Honduras. The harvest in Rwanda and Burundi is just starting followed up by Brazil and Colombia next fall.

We will build a base of products from reliable and progressive producers to be able to develop a great quality range over time. Most of the coffees will be returning on annual bases, but we will still have a great range of variation.

If you are interested in buying coffees from us, please contact Morten.

 

 

 

Kenya purchase

By Morten Wennersgaard

Cupped through some hundred cups at Central Kenya Coffee mill in Karatina to find our coffees this year.

Intense berry flavors and fruit, rich, complex, juicy, floral and elegant, that’s Kenyan coffee at its best! The Kenyan coffee harvest has come to an end. We have some fantastic coffees coming in this spring. First container will arrive early April if everything goes as planned. The prices are slightly down from last year, but you still have to pay up for the good ones. And again it’s totally worth the price!

Coffee piles up in the dry mill in Karatina.

There was a lot of coffee harvested this year, and some may say quality is down. Last year was a blast, but there is still amazing coffee this year as well.  It’s just more coffees to cup through to find the really great ones. Some wet mills had some drying challenges this year because of capacity issues on drying tables. That may be true for the average quality in Kenya, but the stand outs will as always speak for themselves.

There were also some great AB’s this year, and truth is some of the best AB’s we found were far better than most of the AA we cupped from other wet mills or outturns. From the top lots you could find the AA’s to be slightly more transparent and complex, but missing the fruit intensity and juiciness of the AB.

 

One out of many Karogotos we cupped and bought

Great stuff will soon arrive from Karogoto factory in Nyeri as well as some N’dumberi from Kiambu and a new discovery from Western Kenya from a wetmill called Kapsokisio. Different in flavor from the central Kenyan ones, but beautiful and elegant with floral attributes, citrus, yellow fruit and rosehip/raspberry notes..

Second shipment will probably arrive a month later, in the beginning of May. There will be coffees from the Kagumoini wet mill, Kangocho and hopefully some Kirinyaga coffee factories. These coffees are not yet ready to be milled and will hopefully be on float end of March/beginning of April.

Final drying at the tables. In Kenya it's common to do intermediate conditioning when coffees are stable at around 16% moist. They They can store it in conditioning bins for weeks before they take them out in the sun for a few days to get down to a target at around 11%

All these coffees are bought direct and selected by us before they ever reach the Kenyan Coffee Auction. As we have spent weeks, and even months in Kenya all together we have an idea of what profiles and qualities the different Factories (wet mills) are producing. Even if it can vary from year to year we will normally find what we are looking for when we cup through enough separated out turns from the selected factories. First step is to check out what’s going on during harvest, and visit the wet mills and producers. Second is about timing, to be there when all the better coffees arrives at the dry mill. We want to build relationships as well. Coming back to the same coffee factories every year encourage them to continue to improve quality as well as they get proud of their product. We do also pay prices above the general auction price. Producing quality and doing special preparations cost more, and we want to give the farmers incentives to continue working on improvements and quality control.

El Salvador teaser

By Morten Wennersgaard

Beneficio Las Cruces

Even if the harvest started early this year, the higher altitudes are still not picked. We are currently working on a project at Beneficio Las Cruces in the Santa Ana area on farm/block selection, processing and drying. We will this year do trials on about 10 different small farms and blocks.  Coffees will mostly be demucilaged before soaked over night in clean water and patio dried. We are also doing drying trials on raised beds that might be implemented 2013.
We will do trials with small amounts of high quality naturals for offer as well. For these coffees we are trying out different drying methods, like beds under shade VS patio at high altitudes with a cooler climate.

Natural processed coffees at the patios on Beneficio El Molino.

Los Pirineos

In Usulatan, on top of the Tepeca volcano, we will work with Los Pirineos, a farm devided in to several blocks with different varietals and altitudes up to 1500 masl.  It will be small to medium sized batches separated based on different parts of the farm and coffee variety. The farm has also taken part in a Procafe project growing  different varitals. As a result they have plots of of native coffee trees, natural mutants and hybrids originated from all over the world. Found flavors of extreme variations just by tasting the coffee cherries straight from the trees and will cup the processed samples soon. Long term we are looking at a joint venture project here to plant new varietals on a separate block.The Pirineos coffee will be processed at Jotagallo Ecopulpers. Here as in Las Cruces we currently do trials on soaking and drying and will decide the method for our coffees in the next few weeks.

These cherries from the experimental plot at Los Pirineos tasted like jasmin infused gooseberry and Savignon Blanc. Crazy flavors!

La Divina Providencia

Lies in the area Palo Campana. Several of the farms here are known for the so called Kenya Variety that was brought in from Africa generations ago. This farm is noe exception and in general its a mix of very old trees of Kenya and Bourbon Elite (the heirloom Bourbon variety of El Salvador). By using the parra method, where they bend down the coffee trees for the new shoots to form several trees on one stem they are able to keep up the yield even for the really old ones. Together with the soil, climate and altitudes towards 1700 masl the producer believe the age is contributing to the unique flavor intensity of the coffees from the area. The coffees are currently processed at La Gloria mill, a traditional mill where they use dry fermentation before washing and drying. We will have some amounts of this coffee for current crop as well.

This coffee tree of Bourbon Elite is about 100 years old. Still producing great coffees and a good yield based on a pruning method reffered to as Parra.

Expected arrivals

The picking from higher altitudes will still go on for about two more months. All our coffees will be will be harvested from now throughout first half of march and hopefully shipped in March and April.  Standard preparation will be 16 up and zero defects. Most of it will be in Grain pro, but we will do a few coffees in vacuum.

Ethiopia

By Morten Wennersgaard

General information

Ethiopia lies at longitude 30 – 50 degrees and latitudes 3-15 degrees. It covers an area of 1.1 million square kilometers. It’s the second largest populated country in Africa with more than 82 million inhabitants. The two main growing areas is in the west and south as well as there is production in Harar towards the east.
Ethiopia can produce up to 300 tons of green coffee. More than 75% is sundried (naturals). They consume a significant amount domestically, and about 60% of production is exported. There is more than 1.1 million coffee farmers (smallholders) representing 95% of the production. The rest is mostly state owned farms, but the number of private estates are picking up. There is about 150 farms, 200 cooperative wet mills, 500 private wet mills, and thousands of private collectors for sundried coffees.

There are only farm owners and Unions, representing the Cooperatives, that’s allowed to export trace able coffees direct. All private wetmills, that buys cherries from small holders have to sell their coffees through the ECX (Ethiopian Commodity Exchange) where they are bought by private exporters and sold as non trace -able coffees by grade and area.
Ethiopia’s coffee growing areas are divided in to zones (region) and woredas (local community). A coffee from the Sidama Zone could typically be from the Bokasso Cooperative in Wonsho (the woreda). All Cooperatives relates to a Union that markets and sell the coffees on the Cooperatives behalf. Sidamo Cooperative coffees are sold and exported through the Sidamo Union, Yirgacheffe through the Yirgacheffe Union and the rest mostly through the Oromia Union. Every woreda (community) have a local office where the government and Unions have representatives to support and control the Coops and wet mills as well as oversee the trade of cherries. They do audits and follow up management at site. All coffees have to be inspected and graded by the ECX before moved to the warehouse and dry mill. This goes for both direct exports and coffees sold through the ECX.

New Cooperative in Jimma

The coffee regions

The west

The west represents about 46% of Ethiopias total production. It includes regions like Jimma, Kaffa, Illubabor, Wellega, Bench Maji and others. In the west you basically have three major types of farming. For higher altitudes it’s forest coffees grown “wild”  or semi- forest coffes grown at smallholder blocks. Both are coffee of ancient trees, rarely pruned. Organic fertilizer can be common in smallholder blocks. For larger farms you have more recent varieties and dense planting . Mostly found in lower altitudes.

Sorting parchment under shade in Jimma

Except for certain areas the west are typically known to produce sundried coffees of average to lower qualities. Still, there are some great washed coffees coming out of this region these days. Technoserve, an NGO supporting farmers and cooperatives, are active in establishing washing stations in areas where they traditionally do sundried coffees. The quality potential is huge and some of these coffees have great and unique attributes not to be found elsewhere. The altitudes can be more than 2000 masl, with perfect growing conditions. As they represent a great range of flavor profiles this development is worth following up closely.

The South

The well-known areas in the south, Sidamo and Yirgacheffe is known for it’s clean, floral and acidity driven washed coffees and “high quality” sundried with genuine and unique fruit and berry flavors. The south represents 45% of the total Ethiopian coffee production. Most of the Cooperatives in these areas are Organic and/or Fair-trade certified as well as UTZ and Rainforest Alliance is picking up. Majority of the quality coffee is sold as Sidamo or Yirgacheffe Grade – 2 for washed and Grade – 3  for unwashed.
There are mainly small family plots of both recently planted trees of improved varietals and traditional old varieties. Organic fertilizer is common, pruning less common.

Traditional Cooperative wetmill in Sidamo

Yirgacheffee has become the brand name of coffees in the Gedeo Zone bordering Sidamo. A lot of the coffee in Yirgacheffe is shade grown at high altitudes. The area is pretty dense in terms of smallholders and wet mills. There is 23 cooperatives in the area, with a total of about 60000 members. They cover about 28500 hectares of coffee and produce about 1300 tons of greens. Majority of the coffees are washed, but there is small amounts of sundried coffees as well.

Sidamo covers a pretty big area with very different growing conditions. You can find highland areas of forest coffees in remote places as well as pretty dense production in the more well known areas like Aleto Wondo, Darra and Dale.
There is currently about 50 Cooperatives in Sidamo with a total of 90000 members and a bunch of privates. The cooperatives are able to produce about 2000 tons of greens. Both washed and sundried is common, but here as in Yirgacheffe the majority of the coffee is washed.

The East

Harar accounts for 10% of Ethiopias coffee production and is all sundried. According to history the coffee grew wild here long time before it was cultivated. Coffees from Harar are widely known for its typical blueberry notes and intense fruit flavors. Still I have to admit it can be difficult to find a totally clean and transparent coffee from this area, but thats according to my personal preference and our requirements. If they are able to control the process and trade I’m sure there is potential here. Smallholders typically grow the coffee, and most of it’s traded by local collectors and sold through the ECX. They are famous for the so called varietal Harar longberry.

Coffee varietals

The varieties are referred to as Ethiopian Heirloom and seem to be a myriad of local native Typica hybrids and new improved varietals based on the old strains. In Sidama they grow Sidamo-type, in Yirgacheffe Yirga-type, in Limu it’s different selections of Limu-type and so on. There are selections with numbers such as Selection 74110 and 74140, F59, some areas grow Geisha, there are varieties with local names such as Gammadro Local and hundreds of others. You have different type of farming that will determine if you have old native varieties or new selections. The Typica variety is known to be a low yielding plant compared to for instance Bourbon varieties.

Growing conditions and production

In general the production of the smallholders are low at about 1,5 kg of cherries per tree. However, this year the crop is big and yields are therefore closer to 3 kg of cherry pr tree. This will be slightly above a 1/2 kg of greens. A typical farmer could have a half hectar and about 600 trees or less.  Organic fertilizer is in general common except from some areas with “wild” forest coffees. Pruning is less common. Many of the trees are extremely old, and not always able to give a great yield, but in general a lot could be done with right pruning, mulching and inputs. You often see huge trees hardly carrying cherries. There is a bi annual cycle and some trees only carries crop every second year.

Farming

Forest coffees
• “wild” grown coffees from ancient trees that are never pruned or fertilized. It’s allocated to the farmers by the local government and often farmed communally. Mostly found in the west in areas such as Kaffa and Illubabor. It represents about 10% of Ethiopia’s production and gives a yield at 250 kg of greens pr hectare on the average.

Semi forest farming
• Coffee of forest origin transferred to family smallholder plots. Organic fertilizer is common, but hardly any pruning. Normally found in the west. Represents 35% of Ethiopia’s production and gives a yield at 350 kg of greens pr Hectare on the average.

Smallholders farming garden coffees

Garden farming
• More recently planted trees of both traditional and improved varietals. Organic fertilizer is common, pruning less common. Farmed on family smallholder plots like in other East African countries. Dominant in Sidama, Yirgacheffe and Harar. Represents 50% of Ethiopia’s production and gives a yield at 450 kg of greens pr Hectare on the average.

Plantation farming
• Mainly recently planted coffee of improved varietals. Production is more dense and it’s farmed under intensive management. Most common in the lower altitudes in the west. Farms are mostly state owned but private investments is picking up. Represents 5% of Ethiopia’s production and gives a yield at 650 kg of greens pr Hectare on the average.

Smallholders delivering cherries at a wetmill in Jimma

Cherry reseption

The main harvest normally starts early November and they harvest throughout January.
The majority of the sundried coffees are sold to local collectors. But private wet mills and cooperatives can purchase cherries and do both processes. For the cherries going to wetmills there are different ways depending on where you are. In the south the cherry purchase is normally done at collection sites. Even the cooperatives buy their cherries from members, and non-members at the local collection site, side by side with local collectors reselling to the private mills. It’s regulated by law, and in Sidama it’s not allowed to buy cherries elsewhere. This creates a competition. You can often see the privates have higher buying price than the cooperatives, but the quality can be poorer. The incentives for a member to sell to the Cooperatives are the dividend they will get as a second payment after the Coops receive their premium for the coffee. Current price for a kg of cherrie is 75 cts and the higher dividend can reach 20 cts pr kg of cherry delivered. This allow the Cooperatives to be more strict on quality as well. For the Cooperative wetmills in the west the cherries can be delivered straight to the washing stations, but even here the members have collection sites for the more remote areas.

Cherries arrived at a Yirgacheffe Cooperative from collection center

Fermentation, washing and drying

Wet fermentation
The traditional way of process washed coffees in Ethiopia is wet fermentation. The coffees are pulped by Agaarde four disc pulper or similar. The coffees are after their pulped separated in water by density in to three different grades. The heavier beans goes straight to the fermentation tank for grade 1, second and third grade is pulped again before separated in to the fermentation tank for grade 2, and grade 3 normally goes straight to the drying beds as low grades.

Traditional Agaarde 3 disc pulper

The tanks with grade 1 and 2 are filled with water to cover the parchment and floaters are skimmed off. They ferment under water up to 48 hours. Normally the water is changed two to three times during fermentation. After fermentation they are washed and graded again in the washing channels before soaked in water for up to 24 hours. The process requires huge amounts of water and takes up a lot of space for a long time. It’s also a risk of tainted coffee if the water is polluted. We have seen some great coffees processed this way, and if done properly it can be beautiful. Still, there are trials done to see if the coffees can be dry fermented (without added water) and this can reduce fermentation time to about 30 hours. Coffees will then be washed and soaked in clean water up to 24 hours before going to the drying tables.

Coffees are washed to remove remaining mucilage and graded by density in washing channels

Parchment normally get skin dried for 4-6 hours and sorted for defects easier to be seen when parchment is wet. After skin drying they are normally dried on jute clothings on raised tables with steel net or bamboo constructed top layer. Normal drying time is 7 to 10 days depending on the weather. Parchment have to be covered in plastic at night and during mid day to avoid the intense sun cracking it up.

Fermentation tanks, soaking tanks and drying tables.

Eco pulpers
Many of the pre existing Cooperatives will probably change from traditional disc pulpers to eco pulpers. All new Cooperatives structured by Technoserve do the same. They mainly uses Penagos, a compact eco pulper with demucilager. After the cherries are pulped and demucilaged they goes straight to the soaking tank in clean water to stay over night or longer.
Parchment are skin dried, sometimes under shade in the Western regions, parchment are hand sorted before moved to drying tables under sun. Again coffees have to be covered up at night and during mid day. Early in the season they have some challenges with short rains during drying and have to be careful and quick to cover up the coffees in time.

New wetmill in limu with Penagos Ecopulper and soaking tanks

Sundried (unwashed)
Cherries should be spread out in thin layers on raised tables and constantly moved during the first stage. Drying should go quickly first couple of days and then slowed down. Cherries are dried up to 15 days. Except from a few producers the cherrie quality seems to be poor as they are not separated and the layers during drying can be to thick. The Cooperatives are able and willing to do high quality on demand. This coffees are hulled at local mills before they go in to the Governmental dry mill or to private exporters for cleaning and grading.

Sundrying unwashed coffees

Parchment separation
Normally they will mix the daily lots randomly after drying according to the different grade coming from the pulper. All the Technoserve assisted Coops uses trace ability sheets to monitore and evaluate the process. After drying the parchment is normally stored in local warehouses at site until they have enough to send to the mill. Lot separation can vary, but 225 – 420 bags of parchment is normal for the pre excisting cooperatives in the south, and 150 bags of parchment more common in the west. We hope to work with the Coops to downsize the parchment lots to be able to separate the better qualities. Coffees are then trucked to the local ECX to get graded before it’s moved to the assigned warehouse at the mill. All coffees through the Unions are currently trucked and stored in Addis, and the climate and warehouse conditions are acceptable. They are constructing a new mill and warehouse for the Unions in the south.

Handsorting green coffee at the drymill

Grades and qualitites

The system of grading in Ethiopia is a little confusing as it is a mix of number of defects, processing method and cup quality. The standard grades for export is Grade-1 to Grade-5. Normally washed coffees will be exported as Grade-1 (uncommond) and Grade -2 (standard). Unwashed will be exported as Grade-3 to Grade-5. After processing the coffees as grades 1-3 at the wetmills it will be analyzed and approoved at the local ECX lab. A typical coffee from Yirgacheffe or Sidamo approoved as Grade-2 for exports will be a mix of the grade 1 and 2 from the wetmill. Exportable coffee approoved as Grade-1 would normally be a special preparation. Here it’s only 0-3 defects allowed. Standard dry mill preparation for Grade-2 is screen size 14 up and 4-12 secondary defects pr 300 grams.  An unwashed coffee from Sidamo can be sold as Grade-3, with the same requirements for screen size and defects as for washed coffees Grade-2. Unwashed coffees from Jimma and the other western regions will normally be sold as Grade-4 or 5.

As a buyer it’s possible to ask for improoved preparations if you are willing to pay the extra cost. We will probably over time do some top quality Grade-2 and Grade-3′s  with 0-3 defects and screen size 15 up.

Interview with Morten on Ethiopian coffee

Here is an interview with Morten on Ethiopian coffee, filmed by Tim in Ethiopia after a week long trip in the south of the country in November 2011.

We will be expecting a lot of coffees that we will be selling to roasters around the globe, so if you are interested in buying Ethiopian coffees please contact Morten.

Video of coffee processing in Kenya