Muiri AA, Kenya, 2018
About Muiri AA - Organic
Flavour description: A refreshing, juicy cup with notes of black currant and fresh strawberries. A long-lasting vibrant grapefruit like acidity.
Colour: Light purple
Category: Adventurous
Producer: Mugiai Family
Estate: Muiri Estate
Varietal: SL28, SL34, K7, Ruiru 11
Harvested : October to December 2018
Region: Thika district in the central province
Certifications: Organic
SCA score: 86
Years of relationship: First year
Volume purchased: 1140 kg
Altitude: 1530 meters above sealevel
Process: Fully washed. The coffee cherries go through a de-pulper and are fermented for 48 to 72 hours, depending on weather conditions, before being washed and separated by density in channels. The coffee beans are dried for 15-21 days on raised beds.
Roast style: The coffee is roasted with a lot of energy to bring out the acidity in the coffee. Light to medium roast level.
This is a brand new coffee for us at Drop! As well as our first organic certified coffee from Kenya. Kenyan coffee is one of our favourites, for its high acidity and berry like sweetness. However, the taste profile we have associated with Kenyan coffee is becoming a bit scarce, due to coffee diseases and climate change. We have been looking for an organic certified coffee from Kenya for a long time and here we have it! Muiri Estate is certified organic and committed to biodiversity. We are very excited to have this coffee in for the first time, for the organic aspect and the flavour profile reminding us of that classic Kenyan coffee profile. The Muiri estate gives us a juicy cup with settled notes of black currant and fresh strawberries.
About Muiri Estate
Muiri Estate is owned by the Mugiai family, it was founded in the late 1970’s, and is named after a local tree species called pruners in the Kikuyu language. Muiri is a fairly big estate, with an on-site wet mill for processing, a dam and storehouses. The farm also has cottages for the pickers and the staff working at the mill. This year the estate holds about 156,000 trees in production, and is actively experimenting with other varietals and crops as well, to be ready for changes in the weather and striving to find excellent taste profiles.
After the coffee is processed at the Muiri Estaste, the coffee is separated by the size of the beans, AA, AB and PB. This is the biggest selection of the bean, which in Kenyan coffee grading is called AA.
Production on the farm is a bit more fragile while working completely organically. The Mugiai family is carefully looking after the trees on the estate, pruning and stumping the trees regularly.
Sustainability
For as long and we have been visiting Kenya, a lot of pesticides are used. This makes the soil less healthy, but is necessary in order to protect the coffee trees from the dry climate, insect attacks and coffee diseases and fungi. The past few years Kenya’s coffee production has been struggling a lot with coffee berry disease (CBD) and tough weather conditions due to climate changes. This has led to more people planting the varietal Batian which is more resistant than SL28 and SL34 for eample. However, the Batian plant is not always as high in acidity or as intense as the Kenyan coffee we have had the last decade that Kenyan coffee has been known for. The soil and the weather is changing due to climate changes. All of these reasons combined is why it feels extra important to support an estate that is working fully organic.
At the estate the family Mugiai just built a new facility where they are have 55 cows for dairy production for the staff, for retail as well as fertilizer for the plants and for the organic compost.
The FOB prices for this coffee is 6.25 USD a pound. The current world coffee market price is currently under 1 USD a pound, which is not covering for the coffee’s production cost and gives no profit for the farmers.
