Origin: Kenya
Farm/Region: Little Farm Nakura
Tasting Notes: Orange, fruit cake, and spice.
Varietal: BSL24, SL34 & Ruiru 11
Processing: Washed
Altitude: 1600-1700 MASL
Little Farm is situated in Rongai village within Nakuru County, Kenya. The name 'Nakura' is derived from the Maasai word Nakurro, which means "a place of dust storms" or "dusty place", referring to the swirling whirlwinds that engulf everything in the rich red dust from the scrub lands that surround Lake Nakuru.
Founded in the 1990s, Little Farm has grown over the years and covers about 20.28 hectares producing approximately 400 metric tons of coffee cherry annually. The deep red soil is rich in organic matter and essential minerals, with the area receiving around 1,100-1,300 mm of rainfall each year. When water is scarce, Little Farm is resilient and is equipped with dams and boreholes, which the farm can use in dry spells to irrigate and continue operation.
Cherry Picking and Sorting: Things typically happen quickly in Kenya with picking and the commencement of processing taking place on the same day. Cherries are selectively picked at their ripest in the morning, then spread out on patios in the afternoon light. Here any under or over-ripe cherries, as well as leaves and twigs are removed.
Pulping: The sorted cherries are funnelled into a hopper at the pulping station, where clean water is poured over them funneling them down through a polished chute into the pulping house, where two rotating abrasive slabs remove the outer fruit.
Fermentation and Washing: The now exposed coffee seed then falls into a water channel, where floating beans are skimmed off, and denser beans sink into fermentation tanks. After spending the night in these tanks, the beans are checked to see if the sticky sweet mucilage has broken down enough to move onto the next stage. Once approved by the wet mill manager, the beans are thoroughly washed.
The washed beans gently move through tilled washing channels, where they are repeatedly pushed back to the top by hand using wooden shunts. This process separates the denser beans from the lighter ones, with the denser, higher-quality beans moving more slowly down the gently flowing channel.
Drying: The beans are then sun-dried on raised tables under careful supervision and covered if it rains or if the sun is too intense. The coffee is regularly checked for moisture content and once it achieves its target level of 10-12%, is bagged up for transport to the dry mill.