I wanted to keep this post really short and clear. Kenya itself is a nice loaded single worded coffee subject for a post.
Historically, coffee has been traded in Kenya in a way that paid everyone better than the producer, or even at the expense of the producer, more here.
Coffee from Kenya has always been something special and as an origin, relatively expensive. It turns out that the system is imbalanced.
As soon as our friends at Trabocca got involved in shaking the system up, we knew we would be part of this project as soon as the coffee worked out for us. When you are not buying huge volumes of coffee, you can’t make much difference to 1400 producers.
Last year was the first when Trabocca got involved with Ndaroini Mill in Nyeri, Kenya. A combination of paying enough money for cherry and some training (I really don’t like the word education) to the producers and the mill workers, has been incredible. Year one was the beginnings and this year, the fit is perfect because the cup quality is superb. We can now stand alongside a number of other roasters, who have bought great coffee from Kenya and put the money in the right place. One of the big questions that we are learning is how much money is enough, from Fair Food. This is really important.
If you are driven by something, I think it’s great of you can act on it. So we have it and it’s great to be part of another great project.
As I said, this one is short and sweet.
Menno Simmons MD of Trabocca is a great guy and deserves all of the recognition for the many changes that he brings to the (coffee) world.
