As Kenya’s early season continues, we’re shipping our second round of lots, all ready and available to book. We’ve distributed our purchasing across AA/AB/PB grades, showcasing all 3 with certain factories and selecting specific grades on others. The majority of this second chop comes to us from the New Ngiriama Cooperative, the relationship we’ve been most consistently excited about in Kenya for the last few years.
We have notes available on all the lots, which express the full range of powerful Kenya flavor you’d want to see for filling out your seasonal menu. We’ve found that within each factory, the profiles tend to stay the same between grades while the overtones change—AAs are typically juicier and more syrupy/saturated, PBs have the most punchy acidity, and ABs have the most approachable sweetness and roundness. Your customers might enjoy trying them next to one another.
This is our second Kenya season since the governmental regulations underwent a major shift, with a goal of limiting monopoly power in vertically-aligned sourcing companies. It made things complicated for many last season, but we were lucky to get in early before the regulations went into play and sourced as usual. This year, we were careful to get in early again—and glad we did, since the harvest came early and a huge amount of coffee (thought by sourcing partners to be the vast majority of the main crop) ripened, underwent harvest, and was delivered to market all at once while we were present on the ground.
Governmental regulations are still a challenge for Kenya’s smallholder producers—instead of larger sourcing companies that co-manage washing stations, buy coffee, and export it, paying producers directly, all coffee now has to go through the auction market (Nairobi Coffee Exchange), with producers getting paid indirectly and typically much slower. The government does want to clean this process up, and while the policies haven’t made coffee farming easier or more profitable yet, they were voted in with good intentions and a resounding majority, so we were glad to work within them this year and didn’t find them to be a major sourcing obstacle.
We went about purchasing lots 2 different ways—for lots outside the New Ngiriama Coop, we bought them directly through the Nairobi Coffee Exchange directly, meaning that they came to us through the auction catalog, we cupped them, decided we wanted them, then discussed prices with a long-term trusted trade partner who would then who would then bid for the coffee on our behalf. For the coffees from the longer-standing New Ngiriama relationship, we were able to talk with them directly alongside a brokerage firm associate and discuss prior purchases, specific lots we’d like to buy again, and prices. We paid more for those coffees, adding a premium to ensure we got first access and that we rewarded the length and compatibility of relationship and values.
Doing things both ways keeps us maximally agile, especially as things change—not everyone on the ground in Kenya is confident this system will remain in place, since farmers do want to be paid in a more timely manner.
As always, it’s been an interesting sourcing season and we couldn’t be more excited for the coffees to come.
Interested in sourcing coffee with us? Reach out at info@redfoxcoffeemerchants.com. To learn more about our work, check out our journal and follow us on Instagram @redfoxcoffeemerchants.