We began setting up carbonic maceration infrastructure with our partners and friends at Thageini Washing Station in Nyeri County, Kenya, throughout 2019. The year beforehand was a year where the washed Kenyan coffees were of exceptional quality. We wanted to know if we could showcase these qualities through multiple harvests and with a greater refinement of profiles. We chose to commit time and investment towards the building of infrastructure at this washing station and towards educating the team there on processing practices to maintain this proven quality.

During the 2018/19 harvest season, Project Origin founder Saša Šestić and General Manager Habib Maarbani travelled to Thageini to deliver and install CM equipment and run the first CM experiments from Thageini. They ran experiments for washed and natural CM lots using techniques and recipes created and refined in Ethiopia, Panama, Nicaragua, Honduras and El Salvador. The first of these lots took us by surprise. They cupped differently to our expectations, but were truly delicious coffees nonetheless.

Project Origin have since offered a range of CM Selections coffees from the team at Thageini Washing Station, and we continue to support the team there who produce what is proving to be outstanding coffees from an outstanding origin.

We are excited to see what Kenya’s green beans, environment and natural bacteria will bring to our CM Selections range.