Description
Ndunduri, Kenya
On the eastern slopes of Mount Kenya, Embu County produces some of the country's most clearly defined coffees. This Ndunduri lot grows in red volcanic soils, with regular rainfall and altitudes of around 1,800 metres: the cherry ripens slowly, and you can taste it in the cup — lively acidity and a clean profile.
The Ndunduri washing station was built in the early seventies and is part of the Kibugu Farmers Cooperative Society. 673 smallholders who farm family plots in the surrounding area deliver their harvest there, many of them combining coffee with passion fruit, maize or tea. None of them has the volume to export on their own; together, through the station, they do.
The processing is the classic Kenyan washed method: cherry selection, pulping, an overnight fermentation, washing and soaking, and then on to African beds where the coffee dries in the sun for between seven and fifteen days, turned by hand so the moisture drops evenly. The station recirculates the process water and channels it to infiltration pits.
It is a caracolillo, or peaberry: the round bean that forms when the cherry develops a single seed instead of two. It is separated out because it roasts differently from the flat bean, and here it comes from SL28, SL34 and Ruiru 11 plantations.
