Welcome Guest - Specialty Coffee

Welcome Guest - Gaturiri, Kenya

Each month, we open our doors to something new - a specialty guest coffee that brings fresh character, fresh flavour and a fresh perspective to your cup.

This November, our Welcome Guest takes us to Gaturiri in Nyeri County, Kenya, where around 1,500 smallholder farmers come together through the Barichu Farmers Cooperative Society. Grown in the region’s rich red volcanic soils and carefully washed at the Gaturiri wet mill, this is a beautifully expressive Kenyan coffee with a syrupy body and a wonderfully juicy sweetness.

In the cup, expect blackberry jam, lemon curd and apricot. Rich, fruity blackberry leads the way, followed by a bright lemon curd sweetness and a gentle apricot finish. Medium acidity and a clean, low-bitterness finish bring everything together.

Gaturiri is produced by the Barichu Farmers Cooperative Society, a community of around 1,500 smallholder farmers in Kenya’s renowned Nyeri County. The cooperative gives local growers a shared stake in processing and quality, helping connect the work of individual farming families with the final coffee in your cup.

The name Gaturiri translates as “the shrubs”, a nod to a traditional local gathering place for medicinal herbs. The coffee itself grows in deep red volcanic soils, rich in organic matter, which provide excellent conditions for cultivation.

At the wet mill, ripe red cherries are selectively handpicked and sorted before being pulped and fermented overnight. The coffee is then washed in gently sloping tiled channels, where careful hand shunting separates the denser, higher-quality beans. Finally, the beans are sun dried on raised tables using fresh water from the nearby River Kirigu.