Passenger’s last sourcing trip to Kenya occurred in February, 2020 - shortly before the Coronavirus pandemic shut down international travel for a lengthy stretch. A memorable highlight of that last visit to Kenya was our time spent with the Mbature family at Kamavindi Estate in Embu. Last year, we released a Kenya AA separation from the Kamavindi Estate alongside a number of other community-lot Kenyan coffees from nearby Nyeri county, and were impressed by the depth of sweetness and classic expression of the Kenyan profile on offer. The current selection once again brings these qualities in spades, solidifying the already sterling reputation Kamavindi estate has established for us here at Passenger.

The original Kamavindi farm was established by the late John Njiru Mbature in the 1950’s with the planting of 100 coffee trees: the maximum that native Kenyans were permitted to cultivate under British colonial law at the time. When, a few years later, the coffee planting restrictions eased somewhat, an additional 500 trees were planted on the 20 hectare (approx. 50 acres) estate. At the present time, John’s son Peter Mbature leads the management of Kamavindi with the support and collaboration of his mother Hellen Weveti and sister Gladwell Wanjira. The farm currently has about 10,000 coffee trees under cultivation, with SL28 the majority variety. Peter is an incredibly hardworking and ambitious coffee producer with an inspiring appetite for progressive approaches to agronomy and processing. In addition to his ongoing efforts to improve the quality of the coffees produced at Kamavindi, Peter actively shares knowledge with other coffee producers throughout Kenya and is building an educational training center to host educational courses on coffee processing and farm management.

This particular lot is an AB-screen size selection from the 2023 harvest. The coffee cherries (a mix of SL28 and Ruiru 11) were handpicked and carefully sorted to ensure even ripeness before being floated to remove additional defects. After being depulped, the coffee underwent 18-20 hours of dry fermentation before being repeatedly washed in fresh water until the mucilage was thoroughly removed. After a final washing in channels to sort by density, the coffee was dried on raised beds until the moisture content reached approximately 10.5%.