Kenyans’ lack of a taste for coffee now boils over

For world-class coffee tasters, one noisy slurp from a cup brewed with Kenya’s finest beans is enough to register the distinct flavors and aromas hitting the palate.Phrases like a “bold layered profile,” a “well-balanced taste” or “bright acidity” might be thrown around by this elite class able to differentiate multiple varieties of coffee and even guess their origin.

But to a majority of Kenyans, who’ve lived with coffee trees for over a century now, the fuss of the quality of their bean remains just an overt romanticism.

A coffee drinking culture hardly exists, with many Kenyans going for the lowest quality bean – instant coffee – or preferring tea.

About 95 per cent of production is exported with the measly domestic demand perhaps only supported by the floating middle class.  

Coffee, the world’s most traded commodity after oil, is one of the country’s top foreign exchange-earners.

In 2019, Kenyan coffee exports registered earnings worth Sh20.3 billion, with a kilo of the unroasted beans fetching Sh417, higher than tea, which fetched Sh239 per kilo.

Farmers might call it “black gold,” but of all Kenya’s cash crops, coffee has one of the darkest histories marked by bloodshed, enslavement and dispossession of land.