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Kenya and "the decline of the greatest coffee" (2021)
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- noodlesUK 2y agoI wonder what the long term solutions to these kinds of problems are in East Africa and similar contexts. The remnants of colonialism continue to produce winners and losers economically, with the winners stuck in local maxima where they extract value from the people, but the people themselves see only marginal benefit, and development is stuck at a snail's pace. As with seemingly everything in life, the incentives for the different players really don't line up. Consumers lose, producers lose, and only a select few middlemen win anything at all.
- fsckboy 2y ago"the remnants of colonialism" include the ability to participate in world markets which create markets for local products. If Kenyans grew coffee (ignoring the fact that Kenyans growing coffee was itself a remnant of colonialism) just for the Kenyan market, the coffee sector in Kenya would be a tiny part of the local economy. The reason New York City is the biggest city in the US is because when the Erie Canal was built, the agricultural riches of the Midwest had a route to world markets. Where you have a major seaport, you also need major banks and major insurance companies to smooth out the financial needs of traders and shippers, providing the funds right away back to the farmers, instead of them waiting till the voyages were complete. (without the Erie Canal, New Orleans would have become the largest city in the US) Yes, there is a lot of money in trading, banking, etc. At every step of the transaction pyramid, a %age is added to the price, and the %age fees charged on that go up accordingly. But that measures the true value of the product at each stage; if you have a cheaper way of getting the same product to the same stage cheaper, the (supposed) riches will be yours. The socialist instinct ("anybody getting rich must be cheating") unfortunately obscures the real problem ("monopolists and cartels controlling supply and setting prices are the true enemies of the people") which hinders solving it; by putting capitalism in your gunsights, you make enemies out of natural allies.
- busterarm 2y agoIt's painful having to remind people of this. Also the fact that everyone alive today is so as a result of either being on the winning side of colonialism or from their ancestors otherwise clubbing somebody else over the head.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago> Also the fact that everyone alive today is so as a result of either being on the winning side of colonialism or from their ancestors otherwise clubbing somebody else over the head. That's a poor justification for it, though, and I don't want to live in a society that goes out of its way to view itself as Hobbesian.
- busterarm 2y agoViolent conflict between human beings is inevitable. It stems from our conflict with nature. We're all winners here and that's far better than the alternative.
- TeMPOraL 2y agoYou have to work with the world as it is, not as you'd wish it to work (especially that it likely couldn't possibly work that way anyway). "State of nature" sucks, because nature sucks. All the nice and good things come from building systems, social or otherwise, on top of the natural state of things - systems that work with our natural inclinations, instead of pretending they don't exist.
- PittleyDunkin 2y agoRight but nature doesn't suck. You make humans sound incapable of cooperation when this evidently isn't true. In this world uncooperative behavior is mostly a choice. Particularly in the west.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
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- MrMcCall 2y agoAll of our problems are caused by our not prioritizing compassion in our systems' designs and implementations, including how our economic transactions are structured and performed. Compassion is the root of all virtue, and the balm for all vice. With a greater attention to compassion, every member of the chain of persons that grow, pick, process, market, sell, and even own Kenya coffee will help contribute to a better, fairer, and less deleterious to the Earth, system of farm-to-table. Being compassionate includes being honest in one's business dealings, as well as not being greedy for exhorbitant profit. It also endures that everyone in the pipeline is actually performing a useful service, not just being an unnecessary middleman adding needless cost and other encumbrances. And, of course, the Kenyan system was set up by the English Empire, so its parasitic pattern of worming its way into the fabric of all economic transactions is baked into their system. Yes, it's going to be difficult to extricate that selfishness from their system, but it's difficult for every culture to rid itself of the parasitism of selfishness in our societal systems. Note that ALL our current systems have that oft-dominant component present in them, causing waste and grief for all but the callous owners. In our every endeavor, compassion is the only guaranteed path forward that has no intrinsic negative elements or effects, only difficulties due to our idioticly selfish inertias -- selfishly callous disregard being the opposite of compassionate service to the whole's well-being.
- ToucanLoucan 2y agoThe problem is capitalism cannot function without an underclass, and while each capitalist country itself harbors an underclass that is brutally exploited, the countries themselves also become effectively an underclass too on the global stage, specifically the global south or the "developing world." Many of these countries are being exploited in one way or another, either by way of shady finance dealings that saddle them with untenable debt, which they must satisfy by selling their resources to western corpos at rock bottom prices, or via trade deals that inherently favor the western nations. The only countries I'm aware of that managed to avoid this trap in a big way were South Korea, which effectively created incubators for their home industries to grow in without needing to contend with the world market until they were in a fit state to do so, and China, which effectively is one giant state-run corporation. The rest get fed to global capitalism in one way or another, the ways varying, but the outcome being pretty consistent: they're broke, they're in debt, and despite oftentimes being quite rich in resources, remain both of those things.
- greentxt 2y agoThe solution to amoral familialism?
- returningfory2 2y agoWhile it's true that these systems are a holdover from colonialism, it's also true that Kenya has been an independent country for over 50 years with sovereignty and agency over internal affairs like how the coffee market works. I feel at some point the blame needs to be shifted accordingly.
- alephnerd 2y ago> with sovereignty and agency over internal affairs like how the coffee market works Kenya had sovereignty in production, but not in capital - which is what was needed to climb up the value chain. Historically, Kenya's largest capital market has been the UK, and as such Kenya's administration was unable to break the oligopoly of coffee purchasers who were British-Kenyan dual nationals and descendants of British settlers. The same kind of land reforms that former colonies like Indonesia, Vietnam, India, etc were able to drive did not happen in Kenya. Now corporations from those former colonies are gobbling up land and production in Kenya and other African nations, but domestic African (excluding South Africa) continue to remain on the back foot.
- returningfory2 2y agoThe article (if I'm reading it right) is placing the blame on how the government of Kenya restricts its coffee market (e.g. only allowing a small number of export licenses). It's about internal laws. The government of Kenya has the agency to change these.
- jujube3 2y agoOver 60 years, actually. The coffee industry is regulated the way it is in Kenya because the current government wants it to work that way, not because of "colonialism."
- carlosjobim 2y agoYou are arguing against people's religious beliefs about why the world looks like it does. Logic or reason will not be of any use. No matter what bad things happens in the coming one hundred or one thousand years, it will never be the fault of the people that the religion has designated as holy victims, and it will always be the fault of the people that the religion has designated as evil oppressors.
- stevenwoo 2y agoThere’s an episode of Omnivore about coffee, going from farm in Rwanda to coffee shop in the USA and addresses these challenges.
- levocardia 2y agoSome countries in Africa are certainly "stuck" but Kenya is actually doing pretty well overall [1]. Per capita GDP is about where South Korea was in 1969, or India in 2018, and Kenya's economy has been growing pretty steadily since one-party rule ended circa 2002. Economic reforms and cutting down bureaucracy are certainly part of the solution, but "just wait a bit longer" is too. If things continue progressing as they currently are, Nairobi will look a lot more like Seoul by mid-century. [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDKEN https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NYGDPPCAPKDKEN
- Nasrudith 2y agoPerversely enough, consolidation of production into 'big agra' and mechanized might be the best play to disrupt the existing system for something more efficient and less stagnant. There are myriad paths to get to said endpoint however, not all of them equal. I don't expect said path to go well for smallholders by definition, though even though the survivors would no longer qualify as smallholders for one reason or the other. Winners and losers I must note are the result of any system, even in ones of very high equity or even or especially a 'null system'.
- Hilift 2y agoThe solution is economic diversification. "...sources suggest that 6 million Kenyans are employed directly or indirectly in the coffee industry." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_production_in_Kenya https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffee_production_in_Kenya Also: "Over half a million Kenyan smallholder farmers are farming coffee. But they only produce 2 to 3 kilograms of cherry per tree on average, while there is a potential of over 30 kilograms per tree. This low productivity, coupled with low prices and high costs for labour and fertilizer, make it extremely difficult for smallholder farmers to mitigate or adapt to climate change, invest in good practices, access markets and attract competitive prices. And in the end, the whole coffee value chain in Kenya is at risk." https://www.solidaridadnetwork.org/news/coffee-sustainability-kenyas-looming-crisis-amidst-the-soaring-cost-of-production/ https://www.solidaridadnetwork.org/news/coffee-sustainabilit...
- philip1209 2y agoTim Wendelboe (perhaps the greatest coffee roaster) has been talking about this on his latest Q&A podcast. A rigmarole for exports plus climate change are causing issues. He does a two-episode deep dive into the Kenyan coffee market here, which is worth a listen: https://timwendelboe.no/2024/03/inside-kenyas-coffee-market-part-1-34/ https://timwendelboe.no/2024/03/inside-kenyas-coffee-market-...
- pvg 2y agoI know nothing about coffee roasting but the level of wankery on that site is an absolute delight. Makes me wonder if this is deliberate https://timwendelboe.no/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/T_Wendelboe004.jpg https://timwendelboe.no/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/T_Wendelb... https://www.gottahaverockandroll.com/ItemImages/000025/jul18-458_lg.jpeg https://www.gottahaverockandroll.com/ItemImages/000025/jul18...
- goosejuice 2y agoOf all the speciality foods, wine is the most pretentious. Coffee isn't far behind.
- debacle 2y agoThere's different varieties of coffee wanker. 1. There's the technical wanker, who has the best tools and might roast their own beans even, but generally still drinks shite coffee. 2+3. There's the Keurig wankers and the anti-Keurig wankers, one of whom thinks they're drinking good coffee and one of whom can't stand that someone is enjoying something they don't. 4. There's the free trade wankers, who want beans from a plantation in Costa Rica owned by someone from Texas. 5. There's the roast alchemy wankers, who believe that you need to overcomplicate the roasting process as much as possible in order to eek out that 2.9% acidic roast flavor profile at exactly 203.4 degrees. Buy good but cheap beans from a semi-local roaster, and don't let them get too old. Bam, you'll have coffee better than 99% of people.
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- nemo44x 2y agoSounds like they need a futures market. This allows producers to sell their crop to traders earlier so they don’t have to wait for final export. In addition more law and order to protect those markets from the mills that are skimming.
- greenavocado 2y agoGovernment is restricting export licenses (only nine are issued), effectively creating an oligopoly/cartel leading to a chain of grift and lack of transparency all the way down.
- Mistletoe 2y ago[flagged]
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- greenavocado 2y agoIt's 99% corruption and stupidity. The system is pretty convoluted, with multiple layers of middlemen taking a cut before the coffee reaches the international market. The auction system with multiple middlemen and commissions complicates the supply chain, reduces transparency, and delays payments to farmers, discouraging investments in quality. Marketing agents paying allowances to cooperative board members to secure business is a form of corruption that undermines fair trade practices and leads to quality neglect. Despite buyers paying premiums for quality, improvements in processing facilities aren't being made. So, even if farmers are trying to produce high-quality coffee, the facilities might not be up to par to handle it properly. The absence of direct relationships between buyers and farmers makes it difficult to hold anybody accountable for quality. The discontinuation of traditional processing methods like double washing, likely due to reduced volumes, may be contributing to quality decline. High financing costs and delayed payments make it challenging for farmers to maintain high-quality standards. The lack of reforms in the coffee export system perpetuates the current problematic structure. It's 99% corruption and stupidity.
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- nathancahill 2y agoSEY is a roaster that's pushing back on these things, in addition to having fantastic coffee. They have a very detailed breakdown of costs and value-add at every step along the way from farm to roaster.
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- MKoberger 2y agoThis was such a fascinating read—it really resonated with me. A few years ago, my girlfriend and I started a small coffee shop in Hanoi as a fun side project, and I was struck by the parallels between Vietnam's coffee history and the issues you outline here about Kenya. Vietnam, like Kenya, emerged from a coffee industry shaped by colonial-era inequities. Yet through reforms, robust state support for smallholder farmers, and a focus on infrastructure, Vietnam has positioned itself as a global coffee powerhouse. While the initial focus on robusta was quantity-driven, there’s now a shift toward quality, which is helping Vietnamese coffee expand into new markets. Kenya’s situation feels similar yet distinct. It has an unparalleled coffee heritage, and with thoughtful reforms—empowering smallholders, encouraging direct trade, and finding the right balance between quality and disease-resistant hybrids—it could reclaim its standing on the global stage. The article beautifully captures the systemic challenges and the hope for transformation. I really believe Kenya’s coffee can rise again, stronger and fairer, just as Vietnam is starting to do. It’s inspiring to see how coffee connects people and places across the world in such unique ways!
- paulette449 2y ago> A few years ago, my girlfriend and I started a small coffee shop in Hanoi as a fun side project Did it end up being the fun side project you expected?
- dyauspitr 2y agoHaving done something similar in India I can say it definitely was fun. What makes it fun is there are next to no regulations so you can plop down in a place one day and just sell food.
- 9dev 2y agoHah, try that in Germany. You shouldn’t even be giving food a sideways glance without your permits at hand. And don’t you dare to even consider selling beer alongside your snacks.
- soneca 2y ago[flagged]
- rob74 2y agoBasically, it boils down to a change of process. His theory is that the "special" taste of Kenyan coffee was due to the "secondary fermentation" step, which is actually a trick to free up drying space faster: > In Kenya, this meant the introduction of the “double washed” or “double fermented” style of coffee many buyers are familiar with. Coffee would be fermented dry for 12-24 hours, washed, and then sent to a holding tank where it would be soaked in clean, cool water for up to an additional 24 hours or longer (the so-called “secondary fermentation”). Since production has decreased, drying space is now more available, so the coffee now spends a much longer time there, and double fermentation (which is of course an additional step and requires additional effort, driving up costs) has all but disappeared, so the coffee now tastes different: > I noted that some changes were made to the way the coffee was processed. Because drying space was no longer in short supply—except perhaps for a short while at peak harvest—the holding pens weren’t in use anymore. The coffee went on the beds and stayed there. And of course, because in Kenya’s export system a coffee must first pass through a dry mill before auction and export, this means that unlike other countries—where coffee can be stored in parchment to homogenize or stabilize prior to final sale, it’s removed from its protective layer months before shipping and stored in warehouses without climate control dotting Nairobi. If it doesn’t stabilize during drying—like in a holding pen—it would be more susceptible to fade, a phenomenon I have observed in the samples I’d tasted and Kenyan coffees I’d hoped to enjoy from other roasters. And then there was the fermentation: the factories I bought from no longer practiced Kenya’s signature “secondary fermentation” or soak—and they insisted that they weren’t the only ones who’d given up the practice. I looked around, and—they were right. ...and, last but not least, due to the "colonial" system, with only a few exporters raking in the profits and the individual producers not getting a fair share (and having no alternative but to sell to the oligopoly), they're not really incentivized to improve quality.
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- ChrisMarshallNY 2y agoThis was an awesome read. I never knew what my coffee went through. The Ugandan coffee was really good.
- bvrmn 2y agoBy the end of 2024 Kenya is still best "safe" option to buy beans from unknown roastery. In my opinion of course.
- gffrd 2y agoHow should I interpret this? That Kenyan beans are least influenced by the roasting process, and thus more consistent? Or that you don't have a strong preference for Kenyan beans, so any roast will do?
- Error9632 2y agoGreat Kenyans are rare nowadays so it is definitely one of the worse blind picks one could make.
- bvrmn 2y agoAs a retail customer who wants to by beans blindly in an unknown roastery you could safely choose kenya. Often it would have higher quality when others.
- astrange 2y agoI've had the best luck with Ethiopia. Jamaica and Hawaii are the best (or maybe, the most interesting?) when you know what you're getting.
- NickC25 2y agoThis was tough to read. I was never a coffee drinker at all until I spent a month in Kenya 6 years ago helping a startup get off the ground (ex CTO/CEO lived in Nairobi at the time). I tried the local coffee as was customary (when in Rome...) and because the Kenyans were SO passionate about their local coffee. I was floored. I got completely hooked, and to this day have not found quality Kenyan coffee here in the USA. The coffee in Kenya is incredible, puts the crap Americans pay $$$ for at Starbucks to absolute shame.
- roflyear 2y agoWhat roasters are you buying from?
- crystal_revenge 2y agoI haven't had the chance to have coffee in Kenya, but I would note that most serious coffee places in the US also "puts the crap Americans pay $$$ for at Starbucks to absolute shame." A high quality roast, a decent grinder and a pour-over will make home brewed coffee that is not even recognizable next to the swill they sell at Starbucks. To be fair though, at Starbucks' scale it neigh impossible to produce consistent flavor with the quality of curated small batch coffee.
- therealdrag0 2y agoStarbucks problem isn’t consistency it’s their roast is too dark,
- crystal_revenge 2y agoThe roast is too dark to provide consistency. As an occasional home roaster: the darker the roast the more the coffee loses the flavors related to the character of the original bean and the more they take on the flavor of the roasting process. One of the major advantages of home roasting is that you can get premium beans from small farms (for relatively cheap as well!), this offers flavors and quality that are only available to small coffee shops simply because their aren't enough beans produced for a nationwide chain to offer to all their shops. However, if you're getting high-quality, single origin beans it's much better to aim for a lighter roast since you will be tasting the (often even fruity) flavor of the original bean. This is also why small, high-end coffee shops tend to favor lighter roasts. But even if you're a regional chain, you will likely struggle to provide consistent flavor from small batches so you'll, at the very least, work with larger farms. At the scale of Starbucks you're going to have trouble sourcing anything from a single farm, and you also want year over year consistency. Often small coffee shops pride themselves on short term offerings, because they're appealing to an audience that understands and values this. However the average Starbucks consumer not only wants a coffee in Alabama to taste the same as Seattle, but they want coffee in 2025 to taste like they remember from 2015. The only way to achieve this level of consistency and such a scale is to create extremely dark roasts. edit: there are also, of course, flavor related and cultural reasons to choose darker roasts. Italians, for example, tend to favor darker roasts for espresso (in part because they can create blends using varieties like robusta beans, that under a light roast have a 'rubbery' taste, but can add boldness when mixed in with a dark roasted espresso blend).
- 29athrowaway 2y ago[flagged]
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- Diaznash 2y agoGrowing up in Nairobi, it took only a 20-minute ride to visit the vast coffee farms in areas like Kiambu, Limuru, and others nearby areas. These farms were located less than 10 kilometers from the city center, many of them close to the edge of the Aberdare mountain ranges. In the mid-1990s, when I was in primary school, we were taught that Kenya was a leader in coffee and tea production, and I used to consume coffee almost daily. Then, all of a sudden, it seemed like one scandal after another emerged—farmers were not being paid, and the industry became overrun by brokers and middlemen. This meant local farmers were cut off from selling their coffee at competitive market rates and instead had to deal with corrupt government officials and brokers. So, what did the farmers do? Most abandoned coffee farming and converted their farms into prime real estate. Remember, these farms were near the mountain slopes, making the land highly valuable. These new houses became popular with the UN and foreign nationals from Europe and the US, who sought refuge from Nairobi’s “heat.” As a result, more coffee farms were converted into real estate, and today these areas feature some of the most expensive properties in Kenya. For instance, $200,000 would now be considered cheap for a three-bedroom apartment.
- alephnerd 2y ago> Most abandoned coffee farming and converted their farms into prime real estate This is happening in Vietnam as well (2nd largest coffee producer in the world). Coffee margins are low because there are too many farmers and too few bulk purchasers, so most fermers have either switched to higher value nuts (eg. Macadamia) or sold the land off to tourism developers who can make a "Glam-Camping" experience for Korean, Japanese, or Thai tourists.
- yowayb 2y agoDoes this also have something to do with Vietnam being mostly robusta?
- alephnerd 2y agoNope. Robusta is the primary choice across much of Asia. Vietnamese are heavy coffee consumers (so the domestic market is strong) and VNese coffee is cost-competitive in Japan and SK due to FTAs. Furthermore, for historical reasons Robusta cultivars tend to be very popular across Asia (just like the Phin or Filter Coffee - the metal apparatus for drip coffee is part of the Colonial Era exchange across Asia - or chicory coffee mix) It's just about money. Too many farmers entered the coffee industry in the 1990s and 2000s as it was the cash crop of choice back then, and there are a handful of larger wholesalers who cornered purchasing. Nuts make way more money than coffee because of better margins and lower cost of inputs. A lot of this is also driven by Food Processors, as VN cornered the nut processing market (eg. most nuts from sub-Saharan countries like Côte d'Ivoire get exported to VN for processing) so there was excess capacity.
- 0xbadcafebee 2y agoThis guy is making Kenya out to be difficult/unequitable, but I'm not aware of any country whose coffee production is equitable. Farmers get paid peanuts and struggle from year to year, and international trade is a boon for the buyer and an existential crisis for the seller (well, for the producer, but the poor seller sometimes misses a BMW payment)
- roflyear 2y agoI don't think Christopher is trying to single out Kenya - just highlight some things about the country and to dive into that origin a little bit.