Kenya Nyeri Gichichi AA

The Gichichi Factory washing station sits at just under 1800 meters in the Othaya constituency of Nyeri. "Gichichi" is actually the town name where the site is located, very close to Chinga, and right across the border shared by Nyeri and Muranga Counties. With 477 farmer members, Gichichi collects and processes the whole coffee cherry for farmer members using a disc depulping machine before fermenting the coffee in order to remove the sticky demucilage layer. After the fruit is easily removed, the seeds are then soaked in clean water where they are completely "washed" of any remaining fruit residue, and then dried on raised beds. Farmers in the region grow mainly SL-28 and SL-34, with small amounts of Ruiru mixed in. Gichichi is one of several coffees we picked up from Othaya Farmer's Cooperative Society (FCS). Othaya manage an impressive amount of wet mills, 19 in all, and their work in the region dates back to the late 1950s. Coffee is processed by day of delivery, and kept separate in order to isolate quality. The separated batches are then run through screens in order to segregate beans by size, the most common being AA (17-19 screen), AB (15-17 screen), and Peaberry (referred to as "out-turns"). This is the AA grade, the largest bean size that commands the highest price.