Kenya Kiambu Fram Farm AB

Kiambu lies near the foothills of Gatamaiyo Forest Reserve, and at the border of neighboring Muranga County. Fram Farm is owned and managed by the Kariruki family, James getting his start in coffee through a small plot he inherited from his grandfather. Now at 40, James has expanded their farm to nearly 30 hectares, the entirety planted in SL-28, and sitting at roughly 1850 meters above sea level. This is one of a few small estate coffees we were lucky enough to buy this year, coffees we had no direct connection wish in the past. We tend to buy from the Farmers Cooperative Societies ("FCS"), and still do. But buying from a single estate affords us a different and unique opportunity to select coffee that we can trace back to its exact provenance, whereas with the FCS's, you're buying a blend of hundreds and sometimes thousands of small holders. This is certainly not a bad thing as some of our finest Kenyas are through FCS's, just different. We still turn to the coops for the majority of our coffee, but are hoping to continue to cultivate buying relationships with a small number of Kenyan small estates as well. This Fram Farm lot produces a little more chaff than the average wet process coffee. It's not like a honey or natural coffee (dry process), but you'll likely notice a higher volume of silver skin shed during roasting and should keep that in mind when judging the physical color of the roasted coffee.