Kenya produces wonderful coffee amid unrest

Kenya, wonderful coffee from a country in turmoil

Last week I received some whole bean coffee from a friend on the west coast, a small bag of freshly roasted Kenyan AA. We have long enjoyed the fine coffees of Kenya and have rarely found them to be anything but excellent. This package from our friend was no different, and it got me thinking. Kenya is a country that continues to experience civil unrest and marked violence, as well as recent natural disasters. Yet they are able to produce and distribute an agricultural product such as coffee with relative consistency in quality and production. It is really somewhat amazing.

Kenya is the southern neighbor to Ethiopia, the alleged birthplace of coffee. Yet it’s been only a little more than a hundred years that Kenya has been cultivating coffee on its own. Catholic missionaries brought coffee seedlings to the country in the 1890s (in still another example of the intertwining historical relationship between coffee and religion). A coffee industry quickly developed, with the help of both German and British colonials, and now Kenya is consistently the 17^th or 18^th leading producer of coffee in the world, with close to half a million small farms and plantations growing high quality arabica plants and employing over six million workers. Most of the farms range in size from less than a single acre to just a few, and have joined together to form of a few hundred cooperatives.

The geography and climate of Kenya is excellent in the mountainous plateau regions of the country, particularly around Mount Kenya, north of Nairobi, where the rich, acidic soil and high altitudes are favorable to arabica coffee. Kenyan coffee farmers are some of the most skilled, knowledgeable and devoted growers in the world. Their farming methods are very earth-friendly, with little or no chemical use and a heavy reliance on natural and labor intensive methods like pruning and mulching. The coffee trees (technically shrubs) are lovingly cared for, with the main crop being picked right around now, from October through December.

Kenyan coffees are wet-processed, a method that, as the name implies, uses water to remove the outer layers of the coffee fruit and further separates the perfectly ripe cherries. Wet-processing also produces a fruitier, brighter, more acidic (though not bitter) coffee. Kenyan coffee is known for its distinctiveness, and is not necessarily a “smooth” cup like, say, Puerto Rican or Hawaiian. It is a coffee with a strong character, medium to full bodied, and a certain flavorful and aromatic intensity.

Kenya also employs a coffee grading system where the milled seeds are sorted and assigned grades based on their size and quality. AA is the largest size bean and the largest beans are also generally the better quality beans, as they naturally contain more flavor and aroma components than smaller beans. This is not always true, however, and there are other factors that are considered in grading the coffee, such as the density of the bean. An AA coffee may yet be separated into a number of different classes.

The coffees are then sold via auctions run by the government, with the best coffees naturally attracting the best prices. In the past this has resulted in better returns for the farmers and even greater incentive to produce the best coffees possible. In recent years, however, the turmoil in Kenya has apparently touched the auction system as well, with farmers complaining of corruption by officials. There have even been occasions of violence between growers and officials.

And yet, in spite of the uncertainty the country as a whole has experienced, the Kenyan coffee industry has somehow managed to continue producing and exporting excellent coffees to the rest of the world. Let us hope that they are able to overcome the challenges they currently face.