IGNIS MORTEM, Kenya

Since the 1940s, when Mr E.W. D’Ollier first claimed this stretch of the Rift Valley, Endebess has been more than a coffee farm. It was a mill and a lifeline for neighbouring smallholders, a place where fruit from the slopes of Mount Elgon was transformed into something enduring. From its modest beginnings, it has grown into a 750 hectare estate, with roughly a third of its land devoted to coffee, rooted deep in the rich clay loam of Trans Nzoia County. At 1,600 - 1,950 MASL, the air is cool and thin enough to slow the ripening of cherries, sharpening acidity and deepening sweetness.

The cultivars here are Kenya’s crown jewels: SL28 for its piercing clarity, SL34 for its balance, Batian for its resilience, and Ruiru 11 for its compact, disease resistant vigour. Each is hand picked between October and December, at the exact moment of ripeness, before being laid across raised African beds. Here the process slows to a crawl, turning cherries four times a day, drawing out the drying to anywhere from three to five weeks, and in some natural lots, as long as seven. 

The estate’s character is built as much on its people as its terroir. Since the current owners took over in 2011, they have funded schooling for children who would otherwise never see a classroom, rebuilt homes for workers, and committed themselves to widening this circle of care. In the cup, Endebess is unapologetically Kenyan, complex, vibrant, and unrelenting, but beneath that it carries the quiet weight of a place that measures its worth not just in harvests, but in the futures it shapes.