​In Kenya, after a certain lot has been processed, it will be delivered to the Marketing Agent (MA) in parchment by the producer or cooperative. The MA then, will mill and grade the lot by shape and size, and give this lot an unique "Outturn Number" (ON), before delivering a sample to the Nairobi Coffee Exchange. This ON will be crucial to provide transparency and traceability to the system.

The lot now has a unique ON, but many different grades that can range from:
​
E (Screen 20)
AA (Screen 18/19),
AB (Screen 16/17),
PB (peaberries),
C (screen 14-15),
HE, MH, ML, T, TT, UG1, UG2 (Undergrades)

The system assumes that the bigger the bean, the better the cup. However, that is not always correct.

Considering the great number of samples and the limited time we have, we focus only in the AA, AB, and PB grades. Through that focused research, the centralized system of the Nairobi Coffee Exchange allows us, to discover some hidden jewels from very remote areas of the country, that it would have been impossible to find just travelling around.
​
In simple words the Nairobi Coffee Exchange works as a weekly Cup of Excellence, stimulating competition and prices for the best lots.

Just a few days ago, I walked into a coffee shop and bought a 250gr bag of Kenyan coffee for €20 approx. While I'm happy to pay that kind of money for a very good Kenya in a bag full of tasty promises, when I got home I found only disappointment.

It is an open secret within the specialty industry, that Kenyan coffees have been in a low the last couple of years, and probably it is one of the most controversial topics right now. As you may know, Kenya is one of the most prized origins within the specialty coffee world, it is sought by importers and roasters from all over the world as an origin of outstanding quality, intense sweetness, citrus/winey acidities and velvety bodies.

We would normally cup 500+ samples from Kenya each season, between origin and lab cuppings. Maybe the right number is something closer to 1,000 samples, between February and March each year since 2016. This year the quantity was lower for obvious reasons. And while it's common knowledge among coffee connoisseurs from around the world, that there has been a disruption in the quality of this great origin, we can discuss on the causes or how much it has been affected, but I don’t think anybody that understand well the Kenyan coffee industry, can deny there is a problem.

​This disruption in quality according to our understanding, can be explained by three main reasons: (1) Climate change; (2) Introduction new varieties and (3) Failure of the Nairobi coffee Exchange (NCE) to reach farmers with proper income and farming supplies.

If you are curious on how will the consequences of climate change hit us, here in Kenya you can get a small taste of it. In 2017, the Kenyan government declared a drought national state of disaster, where 2.7 million people were at risk of famine. Although, the most affected areas were the northern and coastal counties of Kenya, where there is no coffee production, still the coffee industry got affected, especially in the central coffee regions, where the best lots are produced, because the rains were much less than in normal years.
​
Here is what happens to a coffee tree during a drought. When water demand of a coffee tree is higher than supply, drought stress occurs. Drought stress causes wilting, yellowing of the leaves, advanced leaf fall, and premature fruit ripening or fruit drop.
​

Kenya gain its prestige as an outstanding origin around the coffee world for many factors, including: altitude, soil type, rainfall pattern, processing expertise, overall quality; but one of the main reasons of its success was their coffee varieties. In the 1930s, SL28 and SL34 were the two most famous varieties created by Scott Labs, hence the prefix SL. These varieties produce coffees of excellent cup quality and are medium/high yielding under the right circumstances of altitude and rainfall, but are susceptible to diseases such as CBD and CLR.

Aware of the disease problem, in 1985 the Kenyan Coffee Research Institute developed a new variety call Ruiru11. The name given by the town where the station where it's was developed was located. The variety is not only resistant to CBD and CLR but also, it's an extremely high yielding variety, allowing farmers with a small plot of land (which are getting smaller by generation after generation) to increase their production significantly. Although, the intention was to develop a variety with similar cup quality to those of SLs, but the truth is that quality wise, they are very distant.

Then, Batian was developed to solve the quality problem of Ruiru 11. By the year 2010 the Kenya Coffee Research introduced this variety which is much closer to SL28 (genetically speaking) than Ruiru 11. It's also resistant to CBD and CLR but it's cup quality is much better than Ruiru11 and similar to a medium quality SL28, according to some Kenyan cuppers. The best SL28 lots are still unmatchable. We believe that the future of the Kenyan coffee should focus in lot separation by variety.

In the producing world, coffee is political. Generally coffee exports are a major income earner, and in some countries such as Burundi, coffee represents as much as 80% of the total foreign currency revenue. In Ethiopia, it represents 50% of the total.

Coffee in Kenya has become a very good business for a few people, but a very bad one for most. In the 2013/14 year, a miller owed the society more than KSh74 million for cherry and mbuni (unwashed low quality coffee) while the cooperative owed farmers more than KSh85 million. However, instead of remitting the money to the society for payments, Kenya Cooperative Coffee Exporters (KCCE) paid creditors (Sasini) KSh48 million and Kenya Cooperative Coffee Mills (KCCM) KSh25 million, leaving the farmers with nothing.

Among big investors and marketing agents around the Nairobi Coffee Exchange (NCE) there is worry. Climate change is not helping to increase coffee production neither its quality, rather the very opposite; Introduction of new varieties haven't worked the way it was expected to; And farmers are very disappointed with the crop, to say the less.

The government is searching for new ways to revive the ailing coffee sector, among them the introduction of cheap loans for coffee farmers. This will be done through a KSh3 billion Coffee Cherry Fund, farmers will be able to access with an interest rate of 3%. This comes as a wake-up call, seeing that statistics show that Kenyan coffee production for the 2019-2020 year dropped to 650,000 bags, the lowest output in over 50 years.

Something has to change in Kenya, this business model isn't working and the bubble might be about to explode.

The end.
​

1. What is memory?

Memory is the process through which we obtain, store, retain and access information. Human beings are capable of perceiving reality through experiences, which we classify and store. This process allow us to survive, cause if we were not able to access past experiences to decode the new ones, we would be living each day in a constant chaotic state of wonder, terror, happiness or stress. Memory in simple words, simplifies our life and balances our central nervous system.

There are three types of memory, according to professors Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968, Multi Model of Human Memory) these are:

- Sensory Memory
- Short Term Memory
- Long Term Memory

Sensory memory is the very first stage and refers to the process of storage of information that we take with our senses from the environment. Unfortunately, most of it can't be processed by our brains, since it lasts for very short periods of time and just a small portion of it is transferred to the second and third stages of memory, short and long term respectively, the rest is quickly forgotten.

Humans are visual creatures, through evolution, this is the sense that we have developed the most. In fact, 90% of the information that we pass to our brain is visual. Perhaps this is the main reason why developing sensory memory through taste and smell is such a difficult task that requires a lot of training and hard work, and even many people are not physiologically capable of achieving it, since they do not have the appropriate sensory receptors to make use of it.
​

2. We are all the same, but different.

Each human being is unique and unmatched. The composition of our bodies is such that there will never be anyone exactly the same. Although we all have a brain, a heart and two lungs, etc; brains have different capacities, there are healthier hearts than others, and lungs have different sizes, among other differences. In addition to our bodies, the composition of our life experiences is also unique, although we all live more or less the same script (we are born, we grow, we age and then we die), it is in the detail where the difference is found and what transforms us into unique beings.

For evolutionary reasons, our senses of taste and smell have been relegated to a second place. The dominance of vision has caused us to lose the ability to perceive and communicate taste and olfactory sensations. Humans in average have 12 million olfactory receptors, which can detect 10,000 different smells. But we don't all have the same number of receptors, nor do they have the same sensitivity. There are people who can perceive more aromas and flavours than others, and therefore, have a greater potential to communicate and memorize (retain, store and later access) this information or sensations.

In addition to our physiological limitations, our experiences are not the same either. We all live unique lives with experiences that are non-transferable. This is another fundamental aspect in the development of sensory memory. The environment where we live and its culture play a determining role in the way we see the world and what we can absorb from it. Then it’s only through language that we are able to share our experiences and express our emotions.

The environment is the stage, culture is the plot, our senses are the actors and language is the script, of this movie called sensory memory.
​

3. The Flavour of Coffee

As we have already seen in previous posts, memory is a process that allows us to obtain, process, store and access information collected from our environment. And we also know that the possibility of access and communication of such information will be determined by a physiological factor (the unique composition of our bodies) and a cultural factor (the unique composition of our lives).

When we drink coffee, we have what is known as a multisensory experience. A cup of coffee contains a wide range of flavours and aromas, which are affected by many factors such as: the variety of the bean, process, roast profile, method of preparation, etc. Approximately 850 volatile compounds associated with coffee flavour have been identified. However, a small proportion of these (approximately 40 volatile compounds) are known to be the main contributors to the aroma and flavour of coffee.

Aroma is defined as an odour that is detected through the nose and retronasal, and also through the back of the mouth, where the nasal and oral cavities are interconnected. Taste is the sense experienced by the tongue and describes sensations of salinity, sweetness, acidity, bitterness or umami. Flavour is defined as a combination of aroma and taste.

This multi-sensory experience encompasses all the senses to provide the complete coffee experience and allows you to judge the quality and pleasure of the coffee. Drinking a cup of coffee without one of the sensory signals (for example, without feeling the aroma of coffee) will reduce the impact of the other senses, the overall experience and the pleasure derived from a good cup of coffee.
​

1.- The birth of a new reality.
 
With this article, we begin a new series of educational content, this time focusing on one of the biggest and probably most controversial topic in the coffee industry: PRICE.
 
All of us who work here know that our industry is in an unprecedented crisis in various fields; Ethical, Environmental, Genetics and Socioeconomic. We know that the prices we pay to coffee growers (with only few exceptions) is well below their production costs. And when we pay excellent prices for quality, for example in Kenya; we know that most of this revenue does not reach farmers, because there are so many hands, so much corruption and so much bureaucracy in the industry, that most of the benefit is lost in the darkness of a network of connections that we do not fully understand.
 
Other countries such as Burundi, have a system absolutely regulated by the central government. There is a standard price established for one kg of "quality A" cherry (500 BFR = 0.19USD) and for a kg of "quality B" cherry (250 BFR = $ 0.09). Any surcharge in the payment to coffee growers depends exclusively on the charity and generosity of multinationals that are extracting the most important natural resource of Burundi (Coffee represents 80% of the country's foreign currency income).
 
At the time of writing, the future price of Arabica Coffee contracted to September 2020 is 0.98 USD per pound.
 
Our proposal, is that at least, within the specialty coffee industry, importers pay 1USD per Kg of high quality cherry, in all the countries where we are currently working.
 
In the following posts, we will develop more this idea.

2.- THE GOLDEN RULE
 
To produce 1 kg of green coffee we need 6 kg of cherry. Of these initial 6 kg, 5 are "lost in translation" during the production process, mainly due to pulping and drying (evaporation of moisture, which in washed parchment amounts up to 45-50%, and in the case of the ripe cherry to 67%).
 
To increase the farmers profitability, studies suggest that, it is highly recommended to generate incentives at origin for the use of these by-products (husk, pulp, pectin, water) as raw material for the production of: beverages, fertilizers, biogas, livestock feed, fuel, etc. These by-products when not treated, are highly polluting and generate serious environmental problems in the surrounding communities.
 
In our real coffee world, competition is imperfect. Meaning that there is a wide range of inequities between the actors of the industry. First of all, we have few buyers (5 or 6 big corporations) that control the world market price. And second, we have many small sellers with little or no power of negotiation. The latter living in less diversified weak exporting markets that depend on the exporting of one or few natural resources to obtain foreign exchange.
 
Therefore, there is an imbalance in the profitability that the coffee business is generating in the West, compared with how the business impact farmers in producing countries. Today the prices paid for a Kg of Cherry are way below 1 USD in most producing countries and we all must do something about it.
 
The Golden Rule: "treat others as you want to be treated".

3.- TRANSPARENCY NOT CHARITY
 
The problem with charity is that it generally attends symptoms rather than causes. Charitable donations are not the best proposal to solve the problem of poverty or extreme poverty of the world's coffee growers. Rather, they are a temporary solution to a problem that requires more effort and better organization of economic relations between countries.
 
Why do we establish a price hierarchy for green coffee and not for the price of cherry? Because there are many factors that influence the final result of the processing of that cherry. But we could also put the argument that there are also many influential factors in the transport of green coffee from origin to our respective warehouses.
 
So why not coordinate with the cooperatives or producers a pre-established price per kilogram of cherry according to it quality levels? How it is done in Burundi for example, where for 1 Kg of cherry "quality A" 500 BUF (0.19 USD) are paid; and for 1 Kg of cherry "quality B" 250 BUF (0.096 USD) are paid. Prices in Burundi are set by the government, but they are too low. Our proposal is to establish four cherry qualities and thus encourage coffee growers to make a more selective and higher quality harvest to obtain a better price.
 
For example, for a kilogram of cherry of the best quality "A", we should demand that at least 1 USD will be paid, for qualities B, C and D, this value will be decreased by a percentage that is financially sustainable for all. But we must demand transparency from cooperatives/producers, otherwise we will never solve the problem of the extreme poverty of coffee growers, and will be using charity as a relief for the constant abuse of neo-colonialism in Africa and the World.
 
It is not charity, it is payment for a job well done.

4.- THE UNFAIRNESS OF FAIR TRADE
 
With this article, we end this series of educational content, this time focusing on one of the most important and probably most controversial topics of the coffee industry: THE TRUE COST OF COFFEE.
 
The main problem with certifications is that they are for-profit organizations and have failed to condemn and stop the unethical and abusive behaviour of multinationals. Instead, they shield their operations, leaving small farmers from around the world unprotected.
 
In a recently published report called: "Not Fit For Purpose", it is pointed out that these certification companies have been captured and dominated by multinationals, and therefore, their intrinsic purpose for existence is destined to fail.
 
The report also notes that, during the "shady" yearly monitoring visits, auditors are subcontracted and paid by multinationals for evaluation, which creates a clear conflict of interest. Eventually, we cannot trust the claims made by these certifications, because abuses continue to occur and words such as "fair" and "sustainable" are misleading.
 
Often people ask us how we (consumers) can help to stop these abuses from happening? And we truly believe that we have a great power in our hands, the power of decision-making. To generate an impact with our decisions, we must inform and educate ourselves, read the labels and question everything; because only by spending our money in the businesses that are being truly ethical, fair and sustainable, we will generate a positive feedback loop that sooner or later will reach coffee growers.
 
Question everything and enjoy your coffee.
 
THE END

1.- Origins of fermentation.
 
Fermentation is older than any ancient civilization that we know of today. Several archaeological excavations have found jars with the remains of wine that are approximately 8,000 years old.
 
After much trial, error and careful observation, almost all civilizations began producing fermented beverages (and foods as well), but mainly wine and beer. It started with the fermentation of water with honey in Asia, then the Egyptians, Babylonians and Romans used grapes to produce wine, the Chinese used rice instead to produce wine and other civilizations produced beer with barley. Chicha was produced in South America, through the fermentation of corn.
 
In those days people started to leave fruits and grains in closed containers, because they knew that after a long time, that would turn into wine or beer. But no one really understood how the recipe worked. The process was called fermentation, which comes from the Latin "Fervere" which means "To Boil". The name was created because after a time of leaving the fruit in the vessels, people saw the mixture bubbling, so they thought it was boiling.
 
Producing fermented beverages at the time was complicated, if the mixture didn't stay long enough in the container, the result would not have alcohol at all; but if you left it too long, it was undrinkable. After much observation, people understood that temperature and air exposure were critical to the fermentation process.

​2.- What is fermentation.
 
First of all, we must say that the general definitions of fermentation do not apply directly to coffee. This is because coffee is not a fermented beverage like wine or beer, but coffee production processes USE FERMENTATION AS A TOOL, either to break the mucilage structure and facilitate the execution of a certain processing method (Washed, Giling Basah, etc) and/or directly influence the quality and flavor of the bean (Natural, Honey, Washed, Giling Basah, Experimental, etc). Almost all the different coffee processing methods in the world use fermentation in one way or another, with the sole exception of mechanical washing.
 
So now that we've made this exception regarding to coffee, let's go back to the more general concepts of fermentation. In very simple words, fermentation is a TRANSFORMATION of a complex element into another much simpler one. OK, that's perhaps too simplistic! :)
 
Now more in depth: fermentation is a metabolic process that converts sugars into acids, gases or alcohol.
 
Louis Pasteur, the father of microbiology, who is responsible for all our understanding of fermentation today, pointed out in 1856 that there are two types of fermentation: Alcoholic and Lactic Acid. Alcoholic fermentation occurs through the action of yeast, lactic fermentation occurs through the action of bacteria.

3.- Coffee Fermentation.
 
As we already know, fermentation is a metabolic process of transformation of simple sugars into acids or alcohol. This can be divided into two main groups: alcoholic fermentation (produced by the effect of yeast) and lactic acid (produced by the effect of bacteria). But the variety of microbiota (that is, yeast + bacteria) that are involved in the fermentation process of coffee, is still poorly understood from a scientific point of view.
 
A study that we could find on "Mucilage Fermentation" from 2004 in Nicaragua (SC Jackels. Dept. of Chemistry, Seattle Univ.), Took samples from 7 different lots that were fermented in concrete tanks for periods between 10 to 24 hrs at a temperature of between 21 - 23 ºC; and concluded that: (1) in all samples the glucose level decreased constantly throughout the entire process; (2) that the levels of lactic acid and / or ethanol increased exponentially only in the last 3 hours of the fermentation process; (3) and perhaps the most important discovery, the PH level is a fundamental factor in determining when the fermentation would be complete, without developing unpleasant over fermented flavours (produced by acetic acid and ethanol), and this value on average was PH = 4,6.
 
The coffee microbiota has spread throughout the world along with its plants through human activity (Current Biology 26, 965–971, April 4, 2016). But also, the more "artisan" styles of coffee fermentation have generated several microbiota strains with independent origins. In other words, the bacteria and yeast found in Africa are different from those in South America, and these are different from those in Asia. These could play a much more important role in the development of unique cup profiles for different origins of the world, or what would be known as the "MICROBIOTIC TERROIR".

​4.- Types of Fermentation.
 
With this post we end this series of four articles where we have tried to understand fermentation in depth. First through its history, then understanding what exactly is fermentation, following on how it is used in coffee production; and finally we will see in detail the types of fermentation that are currently used around the world of specialty coffee.
 
We must say that the following types of fermentation, in the industry are called "experimental processes", and refer EXCLUSIVELY TO THE ENVIRONMENT where the coffee is fermented, and not to the metabolic process of fermentation, which by definition is anaerobic, meaning, free of oxygen.
 
AEROBIC FERMENTATION: Implies that the fermentation stage is carried out in an environment high in oxygen. It is the most widely form of fermentation used in coffee; and it occurs during the FW process when we dry-ferment (without water) coffee in a tank, or when we dry natural or honey processed coffee on African beds or concrete patios.
 
ANAEROBIC FERMENTATION: Implies that the fermentation stage is carried out in a low or no oxygen environment. An example, take place during the FW process when we wet ferment (soak) coffee in a tank with water.
 
LACTIC FERMENTATION: Generally is carried out in a steel tank in an anaerobic environment. After pulping, it's assumed that only the especies of bacteria which transform  glucose into lactic acid are alive. There is little scientific support to this, since there are other microorganisms (like yeast) that can also survive in low oxygen environments and could also influence the final result of this type of fermentation.
 
CARBONIC MACERATION: Process borrowed from the French wine industry, and made popular by Sasa Sestic WBC 2015. The process is similar to that described above, but fermentation is done with the whole cherry without pulping. Fermentation here may take days or even weeks since the cherries are left intact.
 
YEAST FERMENTATION: As we have said, yeast and bacteria are microorganisms present in the soil, water, air, tank, pulp, etc. But this process refers exclusively to the adhesion of commercial yeast strains (generally the one used in the wine industry) to the tank, where a wet anaerobic fermentation is being carried out.
 
To wrapped out, we just want to say that all these experiments are great, because this industry has been built and grow on experimentation; but not because a process has a "funky" or "trendy" name it will be better than another which is simply called "washed" or "natural". Let's select our coffees by their cup profile and not by their names.
 
Honorable mention to many people from whom we borrow info (all references on our blog), and especially to Lucia Solis from the "Making Coffee" podcast.
 
THE END

​What is moisture? Moisture content is the amount of water (in the form of vapour) in a sample, given as a percentage of the sample's original weight. In coffee, there is no exact standard for an ideal moisture content, but a generally accepted range goes between 10-12%, with some important exceptions like Sumatra being closer to 12.5%; And Ethiopia and Kenya being closer to 9,5%.
 
What is density? Density describes how much space a coffee bean takes up (its volume), in relation to the amount of matter in that same coffee bean (its mass). Denser beans are more flavourful, because its cellular development slows down the higher in altitude it's grown (because it’s colder), which means the coffee retains more sugars and nutrients. The farther from the Equator, the lower you need to go to grow high density coffees.
 
What is Water Activity? The water activity describes the energy state of water in a specific coffee sample, and hence its potential to participate in biochemical reactions and growth of microorganisms (mold, bacteria, etc.). It is used to predict the stability and safety of coffee and food in general, with respect to microbial growth and rates of deteriorative reactions.

​Flavour is the main and most important criterion for evaluating quality in coffee, so our goal here, is to understand how these three factors will affect your roasting, flavour development and its correlation.
 
Why are these parameters important when roasting? Basically, because the beans will react in a certain way according to different levels of moisture and density (water activity is directly related to moisture, so for the sake of the roasting part of the article, we’ll just focus on moisture and density) when heat is applied. Let see it more in detail:

​There are two laws of physics that are worth understanding:
 
1.- Heat transfer more quickly through denser objects.
2.- Moisture is a great conductor of heat, as it transfers faster in water than in air, for example.
 
Let’s imagine that we have two 100 ml cylinders, filled up to the top with coffees that have the same moisture content, 10%. Now let’s say that one of these coffees is a low altitude washed Arabica from Brazil, and the other a high altitude washed Arabica from Ethiopia. These two coffees have exactly the same moisture content, but the densities are very different, the Ethiopian being denser, will have more water in it than the Brazil.
 
It is important to understands that the correlation of these two parameters (moisture and density) will tell us how to better approach roasting a coffee. Moisture content alone is useful for understanding and predicting a series of events throughout the coffee production chain, but for roasting alone, density is the first and main information you should get.
 
This is a complex topic that deserved a longer article, more discussions and more research no doubt.

​There is a simple rule in the world of environmental sustainability, and this is: "If any waste or pollution of any kind is generated, someone further down the production chain will be affected and will have to pay for it."

In an industry such as Coffee, which generates revenues of more than USD100 billion a year, curiously, it is not the big corporations the ones called to lead the changes in the area of environmental sustainability; but is us! The small companies focusing on high quality coffee on the specialty niche. Although we do not contribute significantly in terms of pollution or waste and we take a very small percentage of the revenue mentioned above, we cannot wait for Nestle or Starbucks for example, to take the measures that will make a real difference in this regard. We could wait a lifetime and more for this to happen.

​Specialty coffee is not only about serving a quality cup, it also tells the story about how the lot was sourced, if an ethical price was paid to the producer, if the given traceability is relevant and honest, if the logistics are green and efficient, if the production of that lot did not include any forced or child labour, or if it generated abuse or poverty of any kind.

Undoubtedly, the cornerstone of this whole idea is quality, without it, all the subsequent philosophy falls apart. But when we get the quality coffee we want, it is essential to work on the conceptual aspects of specialty coffee and make them prevail.

In environmental matters, we have committed with two emblematic projects to which we contribute in a humble but consistent manner. We donate 2% of our annual sales to two foundations that work on the protection of Elephants in Kenya and Gorillas in Rwanda and their habitat.

We will never ask you to support us financially to give for these projects, but we want you to know that when you buy a Kilimanjaro Specialty Coffees bag, 2% of the price you pay goes directly to the protection of Elephants in various regions of Kenya and Gorillas in the Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda.

Enjoy your African coffee and protect the planet, because it is the only one we have.

​But as in all areas of life, nothing is perfect, and the Kenyan coffee industry is no exception. It is no mystery to anyone that agriculture is the cornerstone of the Kenyan economy, and the cooperative movement has a solid footprint that can be traced until just after independence in 1963.

Today, there are about 5,000 agricultural cooperatives throughout the country, and of these, 421 correspond to cooperatives of smallholders coffee farmers, with a total of 570,824 active members. The cooperative movement seeks to generate wealth, food security and employment, which ultimately results in poverty reduction; But the harsh reality is very different. With few exceptions, due to corruption and mismanagement of many boards of directors, these objectives are far from being met, and coffee farmers have been affected by decreasing their income in such a way that many have stopped growing coffee and the vast majority are very disappointed of the crop.

​The main reason for this phenomenon, is not the lack of customers who would pay good prices, because as importers or roasters, it is at this origin where those who go in search of exceptional coffees, pay on average the highest prices in the world. The problem lies in how that wealth is distributed within the productive chain in Kenya, and the inability of the farmers to question the expense of the cooperative, the miller, the marketing agent or the exporter.

On our recent trip we met cases, in which the manager of the coop at the end of the season pointed out that after selling all the coffee (at a reasonable price), expenses had been deducted and coffee growers owed money to the cooperative !!! Which also means that for the present campaign, there was no money for fertilizers, pesticides, training, etc. Generating a negative spiral of destruction which will be almost impossible to leave, unless these farmers leave coffee cultivation for other cash crops.

​This is just one example of the very many that can be found traveling through the coffee areas of Kenya. We believe that the solution to poverty, inequality and corruption in this sector is to empower coffee growers to be able to question, doubt, debate; and in this way no one will ever cheat them again. But how long will it take to make this happen? We don't know, but we're sure it won't be fast neither easy.

We can help to begin to make this change by highlighting traceability even more; "Shouting out loud" the name of those cooperatives that are doing a good job; Generating more direct relationships; And asking the key question, how much are coffee farmers receiving per Kg of cherry? An optimum in Kenya is KSH100/Kg of cherry, that is, USD1 per Kg of cherry.

​Suppose we are going to process the lot A, which will be separated according to a series of characteristics that in the industry we call traceability (origin, altitude, process, cultivation, fermentation, etc.); The quality of lot A will be defined by the way in which its cherries are harvested. After the harvest, there will be no possibility of increasing the quality of this lot, we can only maintain it and try very hard not to reduce it.

​Today, we often hear about processes with different types of experimental fermentations, which tend to confuse the expectations of our customers, and we may forget that coffee is the result of the sum of many factors and circumstances, which go beyond one or another specific fermentation.

​In Kilimanjaro Specialty Coffees we find it very positive that producers and importers continue experimenting with processes and fermentations that allow the development of the industry; but we also hope that these flashy names are not used to influence a purchase decision, or as a tool to charge more for a lot that perhaps was not harvested the right way, and it is assumed that just by having a "funky" fermentation the lot will develop a certain flavor, sweetness or quality. This is important, since otherwise we would be replicating the model followed in Indonesia with the Kopi Luwak, where due to the wonders of nature and the well developed nose of the civet, when in freedom, it was able to select the cherries with the greater amount of sugars (selective picking), and the quality of the coffee was given in the first place for this reason and not only by "intraintestinal" fermentation. Then we all know what happened to the sadly famous Kopi Luwak.

​For this reason, it is essential for us to travel every year to origin in harvest time, and observe first hand the standards that will dictate the quality of the lots that we will bring to Barcelona.

Enjoy your coffee and remember that quality is the result of the sum of many factors and not just one of them.

​But how has this happened? How can such an underestimated and undervalued origin by the world of specialty coffee, can become a new quality trend in many countries, and a No. 1 favourite for many coffee enthusiasts around the world in such a short time?

We believe that the answer to these questions is based on three fundamental changes that Sumatran producers understood, adopted and were willing to work very hard to achieve.

1.- Low price of coffee: We all want to live well, we all have bills to pay and we all want to give our children a good education. Sumatran coffee growers are no exception to that, and they understood that the key to improving their quality of life was to concentrate on producing high quality lots in order to obtain better prices. The only way that "C" prices would work in real life, it would be for a large estate, with many hectares of land and with large volumes of production. For small coffee farmers who own less than one hectare of cultivated land, the focus must be on high quality coffee and intercropping.

​2.- Traceability: today in Sumatra, it is not uncommon to find small cooperatives dedicated to producing traditionally cultivated coffees, in a specific area, with a determined variety and produced by a small and identifiable group of people. The lots are fully traceable, to a small village or a small group of coffee growers. This reality responds to a worldwide demand for quality and reliable information. Unlike before, when most of Sumatra's coffee was sold under the name of "Sumatra Mandheling," when there is no place, call Mandheling in Sumatra.

​Processing methods: There are many producers who are experimenting with different processing methods and fermentations in Sumatra. Although, these are new and powerful tools for them, they are improving and gaining experience quickly. We really hope that very soon we will be able to be buying natural, honeys, wine, and more lots with experimental processing methods, but until today we do not believe that the industry has reached that level yet. But there is one processing method that for us is the King, and until today, we haven’t been able to find any better coming from this exotic island and neither from the whole Indonesian Archipelago. This is Giling Basah! If you don’t know what Giling Basah is, please check our Youtube channel, we have a couple of explanatory videos there, both in English and Spanish. We'll leave the link of our channel in the bio.

Enjoy your Sumatran Coffee, and always remember: DO NOT buy cheap coffee!