Producers: Gloria Gummerus
Farm: Sakami farm
MASL: 1800
Import: This Side Up
Processing: Submerged
Variety: Batian
PINEAPPLE, STAR FRUIT, TAMARIND CRISP, JUICY
About Gloria:
Gloria and her partner Jarmo planted their first trees in 2010 and Jarmo knew they had to find a market outside Kenya perhaps internationally. They were well aware they did not want to compete with big players. So, they didn’t want to trade in Kenya . As their coffees were growing, they started their next quest - to find a viable market. They began going to coffee expos to hand out samples to potential buyers, only to notice some of them would have left these sample bags behind without caring much for it!
As it is an unwritten rule in the coffee industry - courses, lectures, expos and competitions are the way to be recognized on the market. Over the years, Gloria took a lot of courses focused on green coffee and Q grading and she and Jarmo eventually met Lennart of This Side Up who's been importing their coffees to Europe as part of their Sakami project in Kenya.
Notable:
Around 50 women working in Gloria’s farm having been trying to register as an official group that can leverage the power of the community to create improved accessibility to credit and other resources. Each month they set aside some contribution from each member and will wait until they have reached 10,000 shillings that can be deposited to officially register. Gloria serves as an inspiration for women around her since they see how she conducts her business. Next to this the Sakami farm is creating agroforestry by intercropping macadamia trees between coffee, protecting all indigenous trees in and around the farm, as well as the wetland by not interfering on it, leaving natural bush sections in and around the coffee trees, having beehives around the farm, and avoiding the use of pesticides or herbicides. All "waste" such as coffee pulp and macadamia husks are fed to earthworms and worm castings are returned back to the field as manure or used to make foliar feed. Water from pulping and washing the coffee is treated in a settling pond with lime and then used to irrigate the pasture below the ponds. Next to all this, Sakami uses mineral fertilizers to replace the nutrients taken away when harvesting cherries
Processing:
The submerged method is a new one, but it’s very similar to anaerobic: Cherries submerged in water in a barrel with a valve for 36 hours. Depulped the next day and left to dry for 7-14 days.
Only fully ripe cherries are accepted for pulping, each cherry is hand picked by our dedicated women, up to over 100 during picking season. All this is done at our farm and only dry milling is so far done with commercial millers. In near future Sakami intends to get dry milling equipment at the farm, to have 100% control of each green bean leaving the farm and being able to offer full growing and processing information for each bag.
- This Side Up & Jokes Aside Coffee Roasters