This coffee comes to us from a project born out of a meeting between coffee friends on one of Lucia Solis's fermentation camps. Mike, then of Red Bank Coffee, was on the camp in Kenya at along with Eustache from Muraho trading company based in Rwanda. We'd visited Muraho back in 2023 with importer Raw Material Coffee and Eustache was manager for a number of Muraho's processing stations including Kilimbi. During the camp Mike and Eustache hatched a plan to use the fermentation techniques they were learning during the camp to process a small lot of coffee at Kilimbi and bring it to the UK. Lucky for us there was a little extra to Red Bank's requirements and we were able to get hold of a few sacks.

All cherry is hand sorted before a pre-pulp float, where under-ripe or damaged cherry is removed, along with any foreign objects. Cherry is then floated in pre-pulping tanks removing any floaters, and then pulped. The next step is the magic applied by Eustache and Mike based on their FTC experience. Lactobacillus var. plantarum (bacteria) and Pichia kluyveri (yeast) were then introduced and mixed with the coffee. The lot was fermented for 24 hours, with agitation every six hours, before being washed, graded in serpentine channels, and dried on raised beds.