KENYA INOI

Recommended Retail Price: £15/250g

Tasting Notes: Super jammy with juicy blackcurrant and cherry for a well structured acidity supported by assertive sweetness. Undertones of marzipan come through for a moreish finish.

Region: Ndimi locality, Kirinyaga County
Altitude: 1650 - 1800 m.a.s.l.
Varieties: SL-28, SL-34, Ruiru 11, Batian
Processing: Washed

Landed: July 2025

This coffee was produced by the Inoi Farmers’ Cooperative Society (FCS) at their Ndimi Factory, which is named for its locality in the foothills of Mount Kenya. In Kenya, washing stations, which is where the first stage of processing and grading takes place, are known as factories. Nordic Approach, the importer who brought us this coffee, reports that this year’s Kenyan harvest was exceptional due to perfect weather for cherry maturation. “The coffees are crazy intense, bursting with complexity, and easier than usual to find at the highest scoring levels,” writes Nordic Approach CEO Morten Wennersgaard in his harvest update. 

Perched at 1,800 m.a.s.l. in the foothills of Mount Kenya, Ndimi Factory is just outside of the town Kerugoya. Kirinyaga County is located approximately 192 kilometres northeast of Nairobi, the capital city of Kenya. The region offers favourable conditions for coffee cultivation, with mineral-rich red volcanic loam soils and soaring altitudes. This western part of Kirinyaga is known to have some of the most fertile soil in the country. The farmers in the cooperative improve it even more by fertilizing with coffee cherry pulp and manure. 

The 540 farmers in the Inoi FCS cultivate SL-28, SL-34, Batian, and Ruiru 11 varieties. The coffee plants flower from February to April and are harvested from October to January. Once the cherries have been delivered to the washing station, they are hand sorted. The underripes, insect damaged and other defective cherries are removed. Then the cherries are pulped and the parchment is fermented in water filled tanks overnight. Once fermentation is complete the parchment is washed and separated into grades: P1, P2, P3, and P light. The parchment gets dried in the sun for 10-20 days before it’s dry milled and bagged up, ready for auction. 

The importer that brought us this coffee, Nordic Approach, is renowned for the quality of the Kenyan coffee they trade. They tell us that, given the relatively high price points for coffees in Kenya, they meticulously cup through the harvest to select the best-performing coffees each year. In recent years, they’ve shifted focus from Nyeri county to Kirinyaga county due to the discovery of higher-quality coffees there. The last Kenyan coffee we roasted, from Ndaroini Factory, was grown in Nyeri. 

As is the case with this lot, an FCS may oversee multiple factories. These factories procure cherries from smallholders and small-scale farm owners (typically with a few hundred trees). These cherries are combined into a daily lot, usually comprising cherries from hundreds of different smallholders. Even the most renowned factories exhibit a range in quality. The FCS oversees the processing and shares the profits with its members.

Nordic Approach prioritizes building long term relationships with the FCS’s from whom they purchase. Maintaining relationships with reliable suppliers helps to ensure high quality and that premiums are returned to the producers. Farmers have the freedom to choose which factory they deliver their cherries to, often selecting those with a reputation for producing high quality coffee that earns better prices. Since factories compete to attract farmers, the incentive to maintain high standards is strong.

The way coffee is traded in Kenya has changed a lot in the last few years, making things more complicated for exporters and their importer partners. Previously, exporters could buy coffee through auctions or negotiate prices with cooperatives via marketing agents. However, this system changed in 2023, when new regulations were put in place. Marketing agents have been replaced by brokers who require specific licences to operate. Exporters now must wait for coffee to enter auctions before acquiring samples and making purchases. This means they can no longer buy directly from cooperatives or access early samples as before. The milling process, which takes place after the coffee is dried but before it is exported, has also changed. The majority of mills are now government-owned. This new legislation was intended to prevent a concentration of sales under multinational entities.

The auction system in Kenya remains very transparent, with coffees clearly separated into small lots and different grades. Farmers know exactly what portion of the sales price goes back to the cooperative society after processing costs. Some cooperative societies and factories are able to pay back up to 90% of the sales price after deducting marketing and preparation costs. One of the reasons we work with Nordic Approach is because of their focus on pay transparency.