Kenia - Igutha

Igutha Coffee Factory was established in 2005 under Rugi FCS, the factory currently works with 600 members delivering coffee cherries. All coffee cherries are handpicked and delivered to the mill the same day. Factory employees oversee the process and any under ripe or damaged cherries will not be accepted by the ‘Cherry Clerk’, who keeps records of how much coffee each producer delivers on any given day (and thus how much payment is due once the coffee has sold). Any rejected coffee will have to be taken home again, and the farmer will need to find a place to dry it (often a tarp in the yard) to be delivered only at the end of season as low quality ‘Mbuni’ – natural process coffee that earns a very low price. Thus, farmer members are incentivised to only pick and deliver only the ripest cherry that they can. After being weighed and logged, the weight of the delivery and the farmer’s identification are recorded in the Cherry Clerk’s register and the cherries are getting pulped. After pulping, the cherries are delivered to one of the factory’s fermentation tanks, where they will be fermented for aprox. 12 to 48 hours. The coffee is then fully washed to remove all traces of mucilage, during which time it will be graded. The coffee will then either be delivered to dry on the factory’s raised drying beds or will be soaked under circulating water for up to 24 hours. Finally the coffee will dry here slowly over the course of 2 to 3 weeks, during which time it will be turned regularly and covered during the hottest part of the day.