Coffee Varietals in Kenya

WOLFF WEEKLY VLOGG 014 | Boyce Harries with a look at Kenyan Coffee Varietals

My name is Boyce Harries, I am a Kenyan coffee farmer and I would like to talk about the varieties of coffee that you might expect to find in Kenya. First of all, of course, we grow Arabica coffee in Kenya and there are about four or fives varieties that you might come across with Kenyan coffees.


Perhaps the oldest and most historical one is called French Mission. This is the variety that you would probably look at as the heirloom varietal of East African commercial coffee. It was introduced into East Africa in I guess the late 1800s by French Missionaries and I guess that’s why it got it’s name. It was developed in Nairobi, I believe and launched and made available to farmers to plant commercially.


Since then, other research and breeding facilities came about. One of which became very famous in it’s day: Scott Laboratories. From them, you’ve got a graduation of SL type coffees. These varieties were considered to have higher brightness and acidity and a bit more blackcurrant and blueberry flavours. Whereas French Mission, with it’s Bourbon history, was perhaps a bit muted on the acidity levels and those fruit flavours which I’ve just discussed.


Obviously these varieties were bred for quality in terms of the cup and as Kenyan coffee farming became more established, growers became more involved of the conditions in the various regions which Kenya grew coffee, and, therefore, a demand came about to be able to provide farmers, from an agronomic point of view, varieties which would suit their growing region.


One of these, which is well known, is called K7. The K7 is useful to farmers because it is highly drought resistant, has a very good root structure and also it is resistant to rust. As we move on over the years another variety in Kenya has come about. This is Ruiri 11. Ruiri 11 was developed with some robusta history in its breeding and genetics and I think that by achieving this, this allowed the breeders to bring in resistance to CBD. With it’s dwarf nature and it’s resistance to CBD and of course with the savings to the farmer in pesticides, and of course with the increased yield from the lack of loss through disease, it is of very good interest to a Kenyan coffee farmer.


About five years ago, a new variety in Kenya was launched called Batian. Batian is the name of Kenya’s highest peak on Mt Kenya. This variety is touted as a very interesting one because it is bread purely through the arabica strain, however, it is supposed to continue the disease resistance of Ruiri 11, without any connection to Ruiri 11. It also has aspects of maye the K7 where it has drought resistance as well as rust resistance. It’s still early days. Plantings have been limited and, therefore, cupping this variety on it’s own is a little bit more of a challenge to get.


Having done a run through of varieties that you could expect in Kenya as you can imagine in the Estate sector, with the development of Estates over years, you will find on coffee estates in Kenya a mixed bag of varieties growing in their plantations.


Chania Estate is a little bit different to some of, or many of, Kenya’s coffee Estates in that we have retained the French Mission. So today we find ourselves in a situation where we have coffee trees in excess of ninety years old still producing. Three quarters of our area on Chania Estate has French Mission. We do have the varieties which I’ve mentioned, which include the SLs, Ruiri 11 and Batian, which has helped us to look at individual variety processing.


This does require a bit of logistics at harvesting, but we are finding interesting results by separating out these varieties and of course with the volume that we have, we’ve taken one variety and move this forward and processed this variety in three different ways. The natural process, which is very new, the honey process, which is very unique indeed in the East African context, and of course the traditional washed process by which most Kenyan coffee is processed.