This offering comes to us from the Ngerwe Factory, a coffee processing station owned by the Kibugu Farmer Cooperative Society and located just outside of the town of Kibugu in Kenya's Embu region. Over 550 farmers deliver ripe cherries to be processed here. Apart from coffee, other crops grown in this region include passionfruit, maize, beans, and tea. After ripe cherries arrive at Ngerwe, the coffee is wet-processed using a disc-pulper. Once depulped, the coffee is fermented overnight to break down the sugars before it is washed, soaked, and spread out on raised beds to start the drying process. Over the course of the drying process, typically 7 to 15 days, coffee is turned and sorted by hand to ensure uniform drying and to remove defects.
Farmers that are a part of the Kibugu Farmer Cooperative Society can take part in practice seminars, have access to sustainable farming handbooks, and can receive pre-financing to cover the cost of farm inputs and school fees.
For more information on Kenyan coffee, visit our Kenya origin page.
