KENYA KAPKIYAI | Specialty Coffee Roasted at Meron

20/02/2023

KENYA KAPKIYAI

Explore the tasting notes of a single origin specialty coffee sourced from Kenya freshly roasted in our coffee lab, at Meron Roastery. Here is some cool info about the coffee and the farm.

 

About the coffee and the farm/farmer

Located in the picturesque Nandi Hills (also known as the “home of champions”), the cooperative is perched atop one of the highest hills in the region. If you had visited the Kapkiyai Farmers’ Cooperative a few years ago, you would have noticed something striking: all 38 members were men. At that time, women existed on the “fringes” of the coffee industry in Kapkiyai. Although women played essential roles in coffee production, such as picking ripe cherries and carrying loads up the hills after harvest, it was men who owned the coffee trees, the decision-making process, and the profits from their production.

 

In 2010, Kapkiyai began receiving support from the Coffee Initiative, and the training in both agronomy and cooperative and watermill management focused on gender inclusion in the coffee industry. Over time, Kapkiyai management began to see the potential of including women within the cooperative. “Women are the ones who take care of the children. They are the ones who work on the farms. They are the ones who bring the coffee from the hills (to the cooperative for processing). It was time for them to get involved in sales,” said president David Saina.

 

Currently, 106 of the 398 members of the Kapkiyai Farmers Cooperative Society are women. The women also produced 55,000 kilograms of the total 200,114 cherries produced by Kapkiyai in 2015, a contribution that played an important role in helping the cooperative acquire an eco-pulper, a new cleaning machine that processes 1,500 kilograms of coffee cherries per hour. “Without women, we wouldn’t have this machine,” said President Saina.

 

Take a look at the cup profile:

Country of origin: Kenya

Farm/Farmer: Kapkiyai Farmers Cooperative

Region: Nandi, Rift Valley

Varieties: SL28, SL34, Ruiru 11, Batian, K7

Elevation: 2,000 – 2,030 m

Proc. Method: Washed

Tasting notes: tomato, gooseberry, white grapefruit, lime

 

Experience the amazing specialty coffee at home. Order your favorites online from our shop.