Kenya - Malaki Estate

The Story Kenya's specialty coffee reputation is built largely on cooperative washing stations and smallholder farmers delivering coffee cherry to a central factory. Malaki Estate is something different. Established in 1959 by Edward Marigi on the western slopes of the Aberdare Range, it is one of the few remaining privately owned estates in Kenya dedicated exclusively to traditional Kenyan varieties, and today it is run by his wife Florence and their daughter Jessica. The farm sits above 1,900 meters in Kiambu County, in rich red volcanic soil with around 1,500mm of annual rainfall and temperatures that stay cool enough to slow cherry development and build complexity. The varieties are SL28 and SL34, the two selections that put Kenyan coffee on the map and that still define what great Kenya tastes like at its best. Both were developed in the 1930s by Scott Agricultural Laboratories for yield and drought resistance, but what they deliver in the cup is something else entirely, particularly at altitude in conditions like these. Kenya's bimodal harvest cycle means Malaki picks twice a year, April through June and again October through December, which allows the family to give careful attention to cherry selection at both harvests rather than managing one long intensive season. After picking, cherries are pulped and fermented for 36 to 48 hours depending on conditions, thoroughly washed, and moved to raised drying beds where parchment dries slowly over about 14 days, turned regularly and hand sorted throughout. This lot of Florence and Jessica's harvest has notes of key lime, dried mango, and white grape.