The Thirikwa Cooperative Society is located on the Upper Medium (or UM2) zone of Mt. Kenya. Its membership consists of 1,553 smallholder farmers, of whom 674 are women. Together, they produce about 250 tons of cherry per season in red, volcanic soil. The wet mill Gakuyu-ini is about 130 kilometers from Nairobi City and represented by five elected management-committee members. Thirikwa has two collection centers for the cherries. The farmers that do not reach the washing station by foot can bring their cherries to these centers. These conditions allow Thirikwa to have a high coffee output. Farmers hand pick ripe cherry and delivery it to the Gakuyini mill for processing the same day. At the mill, cherry sorting is carried out prior to pulping and ripe cherries are separated from underripes, overripes and foreign matter. The mill uses clean river water for its processing and recirculates the water before disposing of it in seepage pits. The coffee is then dried in the sun on raised beds before it’s delivered to the dry mill for secondary processing.