Kenya AA Yara Coffee Estate 2022

Yara Coffee Estate

The Yara Estate was first founded as a British dairy farm in 1902 before coffee was added in 1930. Gatatha Farmers Company, founded in 1971, purchased the estate and transformed it into a cooperative, dividing the lower elevations of the land into animal feed farming and fishponds, and reserving higher elevations for coffee and tea farming.

The estate spans 640 acres in Kiambu County at 1,700masl in the Central Highlands. Five dams across the estate assist in sprinkler irrigation over the coffee farmland, where the SL-34 variety grows in deep, well-drained, loamy red soil.

This Kenya AA green coffee brings together black cherry and citrus zest with caramel and vanilla flavors in a heavy-bodied cup with medium acidity.

Kenya Green Coffee Beans

Kenya green coffee beans are celebrated for bold, fruit-forward flavors that pack a punch in complex acidity. SL-28 and SL-34 are two of the most well-known varietals grown here, developed by Scott Agricultural Laboratories in the 1930s for drought resistance, exceptional cup quality, and large yield at high altitudes. After a coffee berry disease (CBD) epidemic in 1968, the CBD-immune Ruiru-11 varietal was developed and quickly adopted throughout the country.

Kenya coffee production has upheld quality and consistency throughout the years with detail-oriented management at the washing stations. Over 600,000 smallholder farmers around the country are organized into Farmer Cooperative Societies that oversee traceability and quality control for its membership body.

Kenya Coffee Processing

Producers handpick ripe cherries in the early morning and carry them to the wet mill, where the cherries are splayed out for sorting. Clean water is poured into the de-pulper, and the outer fruit of the cherries is removed between two rotating abrasive slabs. De-pulped beans sink into the fermentation tank, where they’re left overnight for the mucilage to break down.

The wet mill manager checks the fermentation tanks the next day and makes the decision to proceed with processing upon “feeling” the fermented parchment. As washed beans spill out into washing channels, producers repeatedly push the coffee with wooden shunts to sort beans by density. The denser, high-quality beans are then left to sun-dry on raised beds until they reach 10-12% moisture content.