In 1914 Karen Blixen arrived in Kenya to run a coffee farm. The farm was set at the foot of Ngong hills and south of Nairobi city.

The Author Describes the Landscape as follows:

The Ngong hills gave a unique view- to the south the vast plains of the great game country that stretches all to Mount Kilimanjaro; to the east and north the park like country of the foot hills with forest behind them and undulating land of the Kikuyu reserve which extends to mount Kenya a hundred miles away.

She further talks of the altitude somehow being too high for coffee; acknowledges that tedious task of growing coffee and the beauty that comes with the plantation especially during coffee flowering. The picking of red ripe cherries and subsequent cleaning near a river. The drying and transportation by ox-cart to Nairobi railways station.

The factory at one time burnt and had to be rebuilt a fresh.

Ultimately the plantation failed and Karen Blixen was force to return to her native country Denmark in 1931. It is in Denmark that she gave an account of her experience in Kenya in her book "OUT OF AFRICA".