Visited a coffee plantation in Kenya today; actually, it was a government run place, called the "Coffee Research Foundation - Centre of Excellence in Coffee Research".
They weren't expecting me, but after a brief exchange agreed to give me a guided tour of the premises and what they do. Actually, as tomorrow is a national holiday in Kenya (a holiday announced yesterday by the Govt as Ramadan is due to end, and no, Kenya is not Muslim, but around 17-18% of the population - mostly found around Mombasa - are) many of their staff had already headed off for what will be a long week-end.
In any case, two people - kindly made themselves available and expand that following a few disasters in the 1970s, the government set up the centre to train coffee growers (courses offered included "The Effects of Climate Change On Coffee", "Growing Coffee Sustainably", "Women as Coffee Business Owners", "Social Media Marketing of Coffee" and so on, in addition to more obvious material) how best to grow coffee.
The centre also came up with an Arabica hybrid (all Kenyan coffee is Arabica) which is disease resistant and also yields a good crop. I was taken to see the plants, and some coffee cherries (red) were picked; the 'cherry' shell is discarded, the mucilage washed off the husk of the bean, which itself was then removed, followed by a removal of the parchment that covered the actual bean. This actual bean is what is roasted, and is a pale green in colour.
I bought some of the coffee that they themselves produced.
Fascinating.
