About the farm
Gititu sits in Nyeri County, in the southwestern foothills of Mount Kenya, an area widely regarded as the classic heartland of Kenyan coffee. The Aberdare range sits on one side and Mount Kenya on the other, and the volcanic red soil between them, combined with two distinct rainy seasons, gives farms here some of the most reliable growing conditions in the country. This lot comes from Gititu, one of the factories run by Aguthi Farmers Cooperative Society, at elevations between 1,600 and 1,850 metres.
Aguthi Farmers Cooperative Society represents more than a thousand smallholders in Tetu, most farming under an acre and managing around a hundred coffee trees alongside food crops. Around half of the member farmers are women, a higher share than is typical for Kenyan cooperatives. Cherry from these small farms is delivered to the Gititu factory, where it is sorted, weighed, and tracked by delivery date so lots stay traceable back to harvest week.
This lot is a natural. Ripe cherry is hand sorted for color at the factory, then laid out on raised beds to dry as whole fruit over several weeks, turned regularly so it dries evenly. The traditional planting here is SL28 and SL34, cultivars bred in Kenya in the mid-20th century and still prized for the blackcurrant-toned acidity that helped build the reputation of Kenyan coffee, though newer varieties like Ruiru 11 and Batian are increasingly mixed in as farmers plant for disease resistance.
