Oreti Estate
Thika

The Oreti Estate farm has been owned by the Harries family for several generations. It is one of the last two remaining medium-sized farms in Kenya and is located on deep volcanic red soils. This small 35-hectare farm (which is in fact a large farm by Kenyan standards) was named after New Zealand’s Oreti Beach, where Boyce’s grandfather met his grandmother for the first time. Peter Harries decided to plant 17 hectares of SL14 alongside the SL28 in 1961. Although particularly susceptible to disease, the family has kept this variety because it’s of a higher quality than SL28.

The Harries family also owns the Chania farm, and 80 hectares of indigenous forests planted to encourage biodiversity currently cover the two farms combined.

Today, over 50% of the Chania and Oreti farms are planted with Red Bourbon. The rest is a mix of Ruiru 11 (resistant variety), K7 (rust resistant), SL28 (susceptible to disease but known for its cup quality) and the new Batian variety. The farms have 40 full-time staff, but employ up to 300 people during harvests to select and prepare the coffees. The farm has opened its own nursery school to take care of its employees’ children.

All the coffee is picked entirely by hand and processed on site. Most are washed, but Boyce also produces natural and honey-processed coffees as well as microlots of specific varieties.