Why buy Kenya Coffee? and Why not Ndaroini again?
Some colleagues of mine in coffee don’t really look at Kenya as a top coffee origin anymore, as there is so much well-produced coffee elsewhere. As an example, Rwanda almost exclusively produces red bourbon. This is incredible, yet at the same time, it doesn’t hit the same notes as great Kenya. On the World coffee map, Nyeri and great Kenya coffees are amongst the champagne of our trade. Some of this is because so many people want coffees that punch through milk and others don’t want to pay for Kenyas, as they are at a bit of a premium, not in a Gesha (take out a mortgage kind of) way.
To add to this haze of information, Kenya coffee has been very difficult to buy cleanly, with coffee changing hands so many times, even before exporting producers have been treated badly. You could say, turn the page, buy coffee from another source. That will never solve the problem, in my view, and also the loss of great Kenya (Filter) coffee would be a sad day.
Between 2018 and late 2020, our friends at Trabocca invested heavily in the Ndaroini mill in Nyeri. In our tiny way were helping by buying this amazing coffee. Top prices were being paid to the mill and there was a promise of even distribution of the funds. sadly this didn’t work out, due to air-kilos. You can read more on the coffee revolution here. You will probably see this at the link too…(sorry, this is a rare copy and paste)
Continuing with Thiriku where we left off with Ndaroini
The challenges that have paused our work with Ndaroini farmers have informed our new agreement. And the same core principles still apply to our cooperation with Thiriku.
- Paying the right prices, which strive to reach a minimum living income, to the farmers to give them an incentive to grow great coffee instead of abandoning the coffee market.
- Assisting farmers in advanced agronomic skills, together with our local Agronomist.
- Modernizing the processing methods at Thiriku washing station and experimenting with emerging drying and processing methods.
- We will still distribute the solar-powered cookstoves among the several Ndaroini and Thiriku farmers.