Othaya Farmers Cooperative Society (FCS), the umbrella organization that includes Thuti Factory, is one of Kenya’s larger societies, with 19 different factories and more than 14,000 farmer members across the southern Nyeri region. The Thuti factory is one of the smaller processing stations, with only 380 active members, and sits in the Thuti district at the foot of the Karima forest reserve, just northeast of Othaya Town. Thuti was founded in 1958, prior to Kenya’s independence from Great Britain, which makes it not only the oldest running factory in the Othaya FCS, but likely one of Kenya’s oldest washing stations serving native coffee-farming Kenyans.
Counties like Nyeri achieve very high average prices year after year, thanks to the wet, high elevation conditions, and mineral-rich soil.
Ample water supply in the central growing regions of Kenya has historically allowed factories to wash, and soak, and wash their coffees again entirely with fresh, cold river water. It's no wonder that these coffees taste so clean and well-processed!
Conservation is creeping into the discussion in certain places – understandably in the drier areas where water, due to climate change, cannot be as taken for granted. For the most part, however, Kenya continues to thoroughly wash and soak its coffees according to tradition.
