Country: Uganda
Region: Nyasaland
Altitude: 1800 - 2200 masl
Varieties: SL14, SL28
Process: Natural
Flavour Profile: Dark Cherry, Grapefruit, Papaya

The Coffee Yard is a new commercial partner this year to The Coffee Gardens who are supporting Norman Mukuru and his team to bring his coffees to Falcon Specialty to the UK and EU. The Coffee Gardens have known Norman for a number of years and built a relationship on sharing knowledge and learning from each other around processing and creating farmer traceabilty programs. It is based off this history and trust that they have been able to develop the relationship to now export Nornan's coffee.

Based in the foothills of Mount Elgon souring coffee from the districts of Sironko, Mbale, Bulambuli and Kapchorwa Norman established The Coffee Yard which is a huge center for receiving and drying coffee. Norman has extensive experience in coffee working for nearly 20 years in the in and he has been producing naturals since 2018 often tweaking his processes to find the profiles that his clients have been looking for.

The cherry is delivered to the from the 4 regions around The Coffee Yard where Norman and is team then set about the processing of the naturals.

1) The coffee is delivered to the station where it is then floated and hand picked to remove any unwanted cherries

2) Drip drying of the cherry to remove the initial moisture from the coffee on raised beds

3) A second separation of the cherry due to moisture level and colour to create uniform batches

4) Fermentation either in sealed barrels or in an open tank depending on the end profile they are looking to create. For the more 'floral' profile as this one is it is done in open tanks.

5) The coffee is then dried on raised beds or tarpaulin for around 21 days until it reached below 12%.

The coffee is then stored to rest and homogenise before Norman and the team hull the coffee and then prepare the green for export using hand picking and a colour sorter.