< Return to Our Coffee Travels main page

Mike’s Trip To Kenya

Our head coffee buyer, Mike Riley, is one of the country’s foremost coffee experts. He’s been travelling the world for nearly 20 years and has been dubbed the ‘Indiana Jones of Coffee’. He recently returned from Kenya, where he visited two cooperatives in the Nyeri Hills that supply us with coffee. Thanks to the rich volcanic soil and high altitude of these beautiful mountain slopes, this area produces some of the best coffee Kenya has to offer – vibrant, with lovely citrus notes.

These characteristics are particularly essential to the flavour of our classic Café Imperial blend, and we’ve been buying coffee from Kenya for a long time so our relationship with these farmers is crucial. Visiting in person doesn't just allow us to see firsthand how the quality of the coffee is developing or to make sure living and working standards are good, it also ensures a genuine rapport based on trust and respect.

One of the most encouraging things Mike discovered on this trip was the idea of ‘Promoter Farmers’ – an ingenuous new system where one farmer is given free agricultural training that covers everything from better pruning to the use of natural fertilizers. In return, each farmer then passes these skills on to more than fifty neighbouring farmers. And it seems to be working well – while visiting some of these farmers Mike saw lots of healthy looking trees whose bows were heavy with gorgeous coffee cherries. We’re looking forward to tasting the results of this bumper crop!

To find out more about how we trade fairly with all our suppliers, click here.