Narok Mara

Mara Coffee is located near Lolgorien in Narok County, only a few kilometres from the Maasai Mara. Established in 2019, the farm was built from the ground up in an area where coffee production is still relatively new.

Historically, this region has been home to the Maasai people, who are traditionally pastoral and nomadic. While the land offers strong potential for coffee cultivation, it has not been part of Kenya’s classic coffee-growing map in the same way as Nyeri, Kirinyaga or Kiambu. Mara Coffee represents a new direction for the area — a young project exploring specialty coffee in a landscape better known for open grasslands and wildlife.

Most of the coffee from Mara is processed as natural or anaerobic natural. Ripe cherries are handpicked and sorted before being fermented in barrels for around four days, then dried on raised beds. The cherries are sorted again during drying to maintain quality and consistency.

The farm has also established a nursery to secure its own seedling supply and has started distributing seedlings to surrounding farmers, helping introduce coffee as a stable cash crop for the local community.

In the cup, this lot is rich, fruit-driven and deeply sweet. We find ripe plum, soft dates and aged honey — a profile that feels syrupy, rounded and layered. It is a very different expression of Kenyan coffee: less classic washed Kenya, more dried fruit, density and slow sweetness.