Kiamugumo

Variety: SL-28, SL-34, Ruiru 11, Batian

Region: Nyangeni, Kirinyaga, Kenya

Altitude: 1600-1,800+ Meters Above Sea Level

Process: Washed

Harvest: Oct.-December 2024

Notes: Orange, Blackcurrant, Lemon-Lime.

The Nyangeni community has produced a brilliant crop this year. Their coffee is clean, sparkling with fruited nuance and citric acidity. Kirinyaga remains one of our favorite places where coffee is produced, upon cupping this coffee, our love for this region is fortified. The cup is full of citrus, rounded cherry sweetness and dried-fruit undertones. This field blend is a great reminder of the potential and complexity that comes with the terroir of Kirinyaga's micro-climates. 

Kiamugumo factory is situated in the community of Ngariama in the Nyangeni subregion of Kirinyaga County, on the slopes of Mount Kenya. In this area of Kenya, smallholders deliver coffee in cherry to washing stations. After harvesting, producers bring the ripe cherries to the factory in horses or motorcycles. The cherries are washed and depulped with water from the Kii River. After washing, the coffee is dried on typical African raised beds, which allow good air circulation between the beans. Beans are dried to between 11 and 13% moisture, then brought to the Central Kenya Coffee Mill in Karatina Nyeri county for grading and sorting. Kiamugumo Coffee factory is run by a factory manager who oversees all activities within the factory. Together with other staff members they carry out duties such as weighing coffee, selection and grading of coffee, paying farmers and addressing farmers’ complaints.

In line with the rising awareness on the need to conserve the environment, the factory has dug their wastewater soak pits away from the water source where the wastewater is allowed to soak in back to the soil. Currently the factory does not engage in wastewater treatment. Additionally the society encourages its members to plant trees on their farms. Kiamugumo has long-term goals to increase coffee production, training seminars, and access to education and sustainable processes for the farmers they work with. They also maintain a demonstration plot that farmers can visit and reference in relation to their own plots. Kiamugumo washing station is located in the buffer zone surrounding Mount Kenya National Park. Mount Kenya is also an extinct volcano and the second highest snow-capped peak in Africa (5,199 masl), after Kilimanjaro. The presence of this snowy mountain in Kirinyaga (the name of which actually means “White Mountain” in the native Kekuyu language plays a fundamental role for the population and coffee of the surrounding areas. Its glaciers feed the Kii river which plays an important role in the processing of the coffee at the Kiamugumo washing station. These glacier-fed rivers also help cool the surrounding areas, giving the farms in the county an annual temperatures between 55-75F - privileged temperatures compared to other coffee-growing areas in Africa! Farms in this region are surrounded by forests of native trees where wild animals such as elephants and buffalos live. 

Our coffees are best after two weeks+ of the roast date.