Kenya Handege
Kenya Handege Filter Roast
This is incredibly early for Kenya coffee deliveries, hot on the tails of Rwanda, which was unusually late, but so worth the wait!. This is a year of change in so many ways.
Handege is here because it exudes everything a great Kenya should. Juicy complex fruits, huge sweetness and just everything you could hope for from a great filter brew.
Top Trumps
Farm: Handege Factory; Ritho Farmers Cooperative Society
Varietal: SL28, SL34 & Ruiru 11 Screen size: AB
Processing: Fully washed & dried on raised drying beds
Altitude: 1,800+ metres above sea level
Owner: 500+ smallholder members deliver to the washing station
Town / City: Ngenda Division, Gatundu District
Region: Kiambu County, Central Province
Cup Potential:
Complex red & white currants, strawberry, blueberry and grapefruit sugars, super sweet and bright.
Recipe: We are loving this at 60g a litre, scaling back if you brew larger quantities.
Farm Stuff
“Handege” is derived from Ndege, the Swahili word for aeroplane or bird.
The Ritho producers society has two mills, servicing some 1000+ smallholder farmers. The societies’ focus has been quality lead and this has helped, when global prices for coffee has been low, they have achieved better prices.
The onus is on the producer to deliver top quality of cherry. If the coffee isn’t up to scratch, it is sent back home and dried. This creates a lesser quality coffee known as ‘Mbuni’, (involuntary) natural process, which is saved for instant or the internal markets. There is an incentive to deliver well picked, evenly ripe cherries if I ever heard one.