Kenya Murang'a Gondo AA

Gondo coffee factory was established in 1998 in the Kihoya subregion Murang’a county’s Mathioya District. Currently, 727 producers deliver their coffee to Gondo. After carefully tending their coffee trees all season, Gondo’s producers selectively hand-pick ripe red cherries as they reach perfection. Even with all that care, they give a second post-harvest pass, separating ripe cherry from underripes, overripes, and any foreign matter that makes it into the mix. The harvested cherries are delivered for pulping at the wet mill the same day to be wet-processed using fresh, clean water from nearby Kananahu stream. The processing water is recirculated before disposal into evaporation and seepage pits to avoid acidifying local waterways. The pulped beans are fermented for mucilage removal for 16-18 hours, then washed and graded. The parchment is then dried under the sun using moisture meters for consistency. Dry parchment is then hulled, graded, sorted, and bagged. The farms here are mostly very small (1-2 hectares) and adults work the farms while children attend school all day. Schools here cost money, which unfortunately limits access to education and future opportunities in this mostly-poor area. Due to lack of opportunity, much of the young population is migrating en masse to cities in search of better jobs, leaving their parents alone on the farms or even taking their parents and abandoning their farms. This problem gets worse each year. But some producers remain hopeful that coffee can provide good business opportunities for their children.