Karatina

Description

Karatina Factory is located in Barichu locale, Mathira division near Karatina town in Nyeri County, the southern part of the famous Mt. Kenya and part of the Barichu Cooperative Society with about 1,450 smallholder farmers.

Nowhere are coffees as thoroughly cleaned as they are in Kenya. The typical process looks something like this: after de-pulping, coffee beans are left to ferment. Then, after 24 hours they are washed and left to ferment again, without water, for another 12-24 hours. The parchment is then washed before being soaked in tanks for another period of roughly 12-18 hours. At this stage, the beans are moved to skin-drying beds where they are laid out in thin layers to allow the mass of water weight to fall. This happens over the course of the morning. This entire process is sometimes referred to as the 72-hour process. From there the coffee goes to raised drying beds for the next 8 to 12 days. By the end of this process, the coffee is as clean as a whistle. The work is already done. Not a drop of mucilage will be found on the pristinely white parchment, and no extra flavor is imparted to the beans except by what happened at the farm and in the fermentation tanks.