This past Thursday, we had the pleasure of hosting Mathew Mugo for coffee and conversation here at the roastery. As we work in an industry that spans entire hemispheres, we were elated to get the chance to chat with him in person.
In the 2014 season, we continued to make good on our Farmer Focused sourcing model by bringing in our first single farmer Kenyan lot with Mathew. Single farmer lots are commonplace for us in South and Central America, but this is much more difficult to achieve in Kenya. Most of Kenya’s prized coffee comes from small-scale producers who are organized into cooperatives, which is great, but these co-ops pool the high-grade lots and distribute them under the co-op’s banner. This makes traceability and transparency back to the actual farm quite difficult.
We were especially excited to chat with Mathew about transitioning one of his two farms to organic production. Nitrogen-based fertilizers are very much the standard in Kenya, but he has started planting trees for shade as well as fruit crops like bananas to create biodiversity while investing heavily in true, organic fertilizers.
We’ll let you know when this year’s lot hits the roastery!
