Kenya Ruarai AA Washed

About the Coffee

The Ruthaka Farmers Cooperative Society operates a washing station in the Ruarai community of Nyeri, Kenya, on the western slopes of Mount Kenya. The cooperative has around 600 members who together produce approximately 280 tons of coffee cherry each year. Their farms sit between 1,600 and 1,800 meters above sea level on red volcanic soils, with most plots ranging from one to two hectares. The name Ruarai comes from Kikuyu, meaning "place of rocks," after the rocky river that runs alongside the washing station near the Gakindu open-air market.

Processing starts the same day cherries are picked and delivered to the station. Workers sort the cherries by hand before pulping, separating ripe red fruit from anything underripe, overripe, or defective. The selected cherries go through wet processing using clean water, which is recirculated and then directed to evaporation and seepage pits rather than released as waste. After fermentation and washing, the parchment coffee dries in the sun before moving to a dry mill for secondary processing. The main harvest runs after the long rains, which fall between April and June.

The community around Ruarai faces real economic pressure. Education costs are a barrier for many families, and a lot of young people have left for cities in recent years. That pattern is starting to shift, though. Rising coffee prices are giving some younger members a reason to stay on the land and keep farming, which is a meaningful change for communities that have seen a lot of outmigration over the past generation.

About Ethica Coffee Roasters

Ethica Coffee Roasters takes its name from Spinoza's Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata, a philosophical text about aligning actions with reason and virtue. That framing carries into how they approach sourcing: they work directly with producers, share the stories behind each farm or cooperative, and treat those relationships as central to what they do, not incidental to it.

Their sourcing focuses on specialty green coffee, selected with attention to how it was grown and processed. The Kenya Ruarai is their first new-season Kenyan release, roasted for filter brewing.

"There is an Ethica coffee that stands out in my mind - a Washed Castillo from Wilton Benitez that had rosemary as a tasting note. Yes, rosemary. I remember looking at that tasting note in disbelief, and then experiencing about the same disbelief by how much I loved the rosemary flavour!"

- Dean, Director of Coffee