KAWA - Kii AA - Kenya - Washed - SL 28, SL 34, Batian and Ruiru 11

The Kii Washing Station is located in Ngairiama, Gichugu Division, Kirinyaga District, in the heart of Kenya's Central Province. The Rungeto Farmers' Cooperative Society is one of three factories, alongside Kiangoi and Karimikui.

The Rungeto farmers' cooperative was created in 1997 following the reorganization of the Ngiriama cooperative. Today, it groups around 850 members who cultivate rich clay-loam soils nestled between 1,600 and 1,900 meters above sea level.

The Kii factory, or mill, was erected in 1995 in a picturesque setting at the foot of Mount Kenya. The snow-capped peaks of this majestic mountain provide a spectacular backdrop for drying on raised beds. The Kii River, from which the plant takes its name, plays an essential role in the landscape, providing the fresh water used to wash the coffees.

During the harvest, growers pick coffee cherries selectively from their trees, then deliver them to the wet mill for processing. On the day of delivery, the coffee cherries are stripped of their pulp and conveyed through winding washing channels. This enables an initial separation between the dense beans and the immature "mbunis" (floats) through flotation in water, where the denser beans sink and pass through the channels to be fermented. After the pulp has been loosened through fermentation, the grains pass through washing channels where the floats are further separated and the dense grains are cleaned of any residual pulp. The washed beans are then soaked in fresh water for 24 hours. Subsequently, the parchment coffee is carefully dried on raised beds for 11 to 14 days, then packed in bags and left to rest in its parchment before being transported to a dry mill where it is inspected for defects, ground, sorted by size into AA, AB, PB and C batches, and prepared for export.