Kenyan Coffee Fluidly Flowing Into the USA

Kenyan Coffee Fluidly Flowing Into the USA

Did You Know Kenyan Coffee has Resonant Cup Presence?

It is the second most traded commodity In the world, second only to crude oil and Kenya produces among the finest, premium quality of Kenyan Coffee.

As per the Expresso & Coffee Guide.

Kenyan Coffee is the best Coffee due to it’s rich flavor, high acidity and a specific Jasmin taste that makes you want more. The Kenyan Arabica Coffee is the second most sought after coffee in the world second to the Ethiopian Coffee thus far according to thrillist.com.

Also Jeff Norton, one of the Directors at KAHAWA Group and a coffee expert says

KAHAWA Group is a Kenyan Owned company that Imports Kenyan Coffee Beans to the USA which get roasted, ground, packaged, sold and consumed in the USA.

Kahawa Group Directors

Based in Jacksonville Florida, KAHAWA has an impressive network of clientele in the USA with a second Office in St. Augustine FL. Kahawa also has warehouse facilities in both Jacksonville and St. Augustine FL.

When I met the KAHAWA team, I was curious and I had several unanswered questions, one of them being why our Kenyan Coffee Farmers produced a premium product yet they languished in poverty. Simon Nyagah, one of the Directors at KAHAWA explained to me that they intend to solve that puzzle. According to Simon, KAHAWA is working towards helping the farmers by eliminating the “Middle Men and the Cartels” in the Kenyan Coffee Trade and Export. They hope to achieve this by buying directly from the farmers through the cooperative societies and selling directly to consumers in the USA, which has a high demand and a hot market for Kenyan Coffee. All proceeds earned from the sales would be paid directly to the farmers through their cooperative societies.

The great Challenge however is that unlike Ethiopians, Kenyan residents back home do not consume their coffee. The domestic consumption of Kenyan Coffee is less than 1% as opposed to the Ethiopian’s which is over 60%. This shows that Ethiopians “Own” their Coffee. This simply means that, it is very hard for the Kenyan Coffee to compete for fair market prices, as we hardly consume it back home hence we are at the mercy of whoever has the buying power to purchase the local product, leading to poor prices. Ethiopia on the other hand has an upper hand. After-all, if they do not export, they still have adequate domestic demand for the coffee.

The uncompetitive prices have led to farmers abandoning coffee farming and opting for other lucrative crops that may fetch them better prices in the market. This not only hurts the Farmers but the economy that is heavily reliant on agriculture as a whole, bearing in mind that Coffee was at one point Kenya’s number one Agricultural Export and has now dropped to third.

Simon and the entire KAHAWA team are determined to promote coffee drinking among Kenyans living in the USA. KAHAWA believes in the strength of a woman thus the ability of a woman to influece society and are now partnering with KWITU, a (group of women based in the USA). This has been encouraged under the stewardship of Ralph Kilondu, who has played a pivotal role in making this venture become a reality. Simon calls it,” Unity of Purpose.” Most importantly, KAHAWA is placing Kenyan Coffee in the hands of women. When you objectively think about it, women put more time in growing, nurturing, harvesting and partake in the entire Kenyan Coffee growing process than their male counterparts.

Why would we not be consuming a higher % of the product we toil so hard in growing? We asked Mr. Eduardo, a coffee expert at Dupuy Group, a grand Coffee facility in Jacksonville Florida that stores 60% of Coffee in the United States of America. This Facility also offers value added services like roasting and testing. Here, you will find Coffee from Ethiopia, Kenya, vietnam, Colombia and Mexico.

According to Mr. Eduardo, Kenya has a domestic Coffee consumption problem because back when Kenya was a British colony, the colonial masters had banned the natives (Kenyans ) from drinking Coffee. It was illegal for a kenyan to drink the Coffee they so worked hard to produce. Ethiopia on the other hand was never colonized and have always enjoyed their crop. That colonial mentality is what is still holding us back from consuming our own crop, making it a challenge for our farmers to gain a competitive price edge over the rest of the coffee producing world.

Our Kenyan Coffee crop is so good, that it is being used to blend other coffees in all these big coffee houses just to improve the quality of other less tasteful flavors. It is about time Kenyans started drinking their own brand and the KAHAWA Group is here to make sure, you never run out of that pure Kenyan Coffee supply.