Kenya grows some of the finest coffee.
That part is not in question.

What is often misunderstood is who that coffee was meant for.

For most of its history, coffee in Kenya was never grown with Kenyans in mind. Like tea, like roses, like so many other so-called “cash crops,” coffee was cultivated for export — first under colonial rule, and then carried forward through post-independence systems that barely shifted the logic of who produces and who consumes.

Farmers worked the land. Carefully. Skillfully. Generationally.

But the finished product — the roasted, branded, beautifully packaged coffee — was destined for Europe, and later other parts of the world. Kenyan coffee became something to be celebrated abroad, while remaining strangely absent at home.

Tea became the daily ritual.
Coffee became the commodity.

For a long time, if Kenyans wanted to drink coffee the way the world drank Kenyan coffee, they often had to buy it back — processed, packaged, and priced far beyond what most people could reasonably afford.

The irony is almost too neat: grow it here, export it there, re-import it later at a premium.

This wasn’t an accident.

During the colonial period, Africans were largely restricted — and at times outright prohibited — from growing coffee. It was reserved for white settlers, tightly regulated, closely controlled. When those restrictions were eventually lifted, African farmers entered systems that still prioritized export quality, foreign buyers, and global markets over local consumption.

The infrastructure was never built for Kenyans to drink their own coffee.

So when Kenyans began to embrace coffee — particularly in urban centers — it didn’t arrive as a familiar, everyday drink.

It came wrapped in aspiration.
Sometimes imported.
Often expensive.

Something you encountered in hotels, airports, or Western-styled cafés. Not necessarily at home. And not necessarily as part of daily life.

Meanwhile, Kenyan beans were winning awards abroad.

Over time, things began to shift — slowly, and importantly. A local café culture emerged. Independent roasters began experimenting. Young Kenyans started reclaiming coffee as something that belonged to them too — not just something they exported and admired from a distance.

But the history still matters.

Because it explains why Kenyan coffee could be world-famous and yet felt oddly disconnected from everyday Kenyan life. Why pride and irony sit side by side in the same cup. Why drinking Kenyan coffee — whether in Nairobi, London, or the diaspora — is never just about taste.

It’s about access.
It’s about ownership.
It’s about finally being invited to the table where your labor has always fed others.

At Jamin Coffee, we hold that history with care.

Not to dwell in it, but to understand it — and to move forward with intention.

Because honoring where coffee comes from also means asking who gets to enjoy it, who benefits from it, and how we build something more rooted, more equitable, and more human.

We carry this history with care — not as a grievance, but as a grounding. We embrace the opportunities we have today. To build partnerships across borders without forgetting the hands, the soil, and the stories that made it all possible. The future of Kenyan coffee is bright, and we’re excited to help shape it — rooted in memory, open to collaboration, and guided by respect.