Kenya Kirinyaga Kiamugumo PB

Kiamugumo

Kiamugumo factory sits in the community of Ngariama, in the Nyangeni sub-region of Kirinyaga County, on the slopes of Mount Kenya. Like most of Kenya, this is smallholder country: farmers deliver their coffee in cherry to a central washing station, where it's processed together. Temperatures hold between 12 and 25°C year-round, with the main crop picked October through January and a fly crop in April through June.

After harvest, producers bring their ripe cherries to the factory by horse or motorcycle. The coffee is washed and depulped with water drawn from the Kii River, then dried on raised African beds that let air move freely around the beans. Once it reaches 11–13% moisture, the coffee travels to the Central Kenya Coffee Mill in Karatina, Nyeri County, for grading and sorting.

The White Mountain

Kiamugumo lies in the buffer zone around Mount Kenya National Park — an extinct volcano and, at 5,199 masl, the second-highest snow-capped peak in Africa after Kilimanjaro. Kirinyaga itself means "White Mountain" in Kikuyu, and that mountain shapes everything around it. Its glaciers feed the Kii River that washes the coffee, and cool the surrounding land to a mild 13–25°C — a privileged climate compared to much of coffee-growing Africa.

The long chain of mountains through Ngariama gives the area a rich spread of altitudes and terrain. Elsewhere that ruggedness would mean long hauls to reach a farm, but here the plots sit just a 30-minute walk — a kilometre or two — from the washing station. Only in the rainy season does it get difficult, when the unpaved trails turn to mud. Phone signal is good throughout, so the station can call farmers with the final weight of their delivery and other useful data.

Looking Ahead

The factory is run by a manager who oversees everything on site, from weighing and grading the coffee to paying farmers and handling their concerns. With environmental awareness growing, the station has dug its wastewater soak pits away from the river, letting the water filter back into the soil, and encourages members to plant trees on their farms. Kiamugumo's longer-term goals are to raise production, run training seminars, and widen access to education and sustainable practices — including a demonstration plot farmers can visit and measure against their own.

WATER SPEC:
Hardness: 70 ppm
Alkalinity: 35 ppm

BREW RATIO (COFFEE TO WATER):
1:16 (e.g., 10g of dried coffee ground to 160g of brewing water)

WATER TEMPERATURE:
93°C / 200°F

CURRENT SETTING: Grind at 5 (medium)

*GRIND SETTING SCALE 1 TO 10
1: Very Fine (for turkish coffee)
2: Fine (for espresso)
3-7: Medium (for drip coffee, pour-over, cupping)
8: Coarse (for French press)
9-10: Very Coarse (for cold brew)