Kainamui AA, Kenya

In Kenya, the traditional way of selling coffee has been through auction at the Nairobi Coffee Exchange since the 1930s. Market agents work with cooperatives or estates to bring their coffee to auction, taking 1.5%–3% of the final bid as commission. In the mid-2000s, a new avenue called the “Second Window” was introduced, allowing farmers and buyers to trade outside the auction, opening space for negotiations before or during harvest. Over the past decade or so, a handful of importers took the leap to source directly from mills and estates, building long-term relationships that bypass auctions and middlemen to secure traceable Kenyan coffee, including some of the first microlots.

In most cases, Kenyan microlots can be traced back to the factory and its contributing cooperatives, and in the rare best cases, down to individual farms. Technically, every lot processed at the factory starts as a microlot, as daily consolidations of cherries are delivered to the mill. After cupping and evaluation, similar lots are often blended to form larger batches.

Varied quality lots may end up in the same blend, but it’s increasingly common for buyers to select pre-blended lots that stand out on the cupping table. Our importing traders typically stay in Kenya during harvest to evaluate the large volume of samples and select the best lots. This Kainamui lot is one of them.

The New Ngariama Farmers Cooperative Society comprises 1,800 smallholders who produce cherry for the Kainamui Coffee Factory, about 600 of whom are women. Each farmer owns an average of 200 trees on less than half a hectare of land. Farmers also cultivate gravellea, macadamia, eucalyptus, tea, corn, and bananas alongside coffee. Kainamui regularly hosts visits from agricultural officials and agro-companies offering training programs, and the cooperative provides pre-financing to help farmers pay school fees, cover production costs, and manage emergencies.

Although this lot isn’t traceable to a single variety, it’s a blend of Batian, SL28, SL34, and Ruiru 11. As with the majority of Kenya’s coffee, it underwent a washed process. While procedures vary slightly between factories, the standardized practice includes two stages of water-submerged fermentation in tanks. The first soak happens after depulping the cherry and typically lasts up to two days. It’s then washed thoroughly before soaking in water for 12–72 hours and put out to dry under the sun. This unique fermentation practice is what makes Kenyan coffee iconically crisp. Combined with the fertile volcanic soil from Mount Kenya in Kirinyaga County, these conditions produce some of Kenya’s most fruit-forward coffees.