personal coffee passport
Your coffee: Kenya Sakami
FARM: Sakami Coffee Ranches Ltd.
LOCATION: Trans Nzoia county, close to Nabiswa, Kenya
CULTIVARS: SL28, Ruiru 11, Batian and K7.
FARM SIZE: 120 hectares
ALTITUDE: 1,800 meters above sea level.
EXPORTER: Sakami Coffees
IMPORTER: This Side Up Coffees
ROASTER: Special Roast
About Sakami
Gloria gave up her career as a beauty expert, came back to her hometown and decided to dedicate her life solely to coffee. She had several goals: to offer great quality coffee, bring about prosperity in the region, nourish an abundant agroforestry system and change certain paradigms. Being that the North Rift Valley (The Bread Basket) is, since colonial times, a region recognized mainly for maize, Gloria also wanted to make the region recognized for coffee.
The coffee growing conditions –the wind, the altitude, and the land– are near perfect. So when she and her husband Jarmo bought their farm in Trans Nzoia County, they were pleasantly surprised to discover they stood on one of the oldest coffee estates in the region. They named their coffee estate Sakami, inspired by their daughters' names: Sheila, Saar, and Nakami.
Today, Sakami Ranches Ltd. is a trademark. Coffee grows intermingled with macadamia, avocado, dairy, and vegetables. Her coffee is reaching exciting corners of the world, and with it, the reputation of Kenya and women in coffee positively spread. She works very closely with the farmers, encouraging them to grow their own trees and taste their coffee. "Most farmers in the region didn't even know how their own coffee tasted," says Gloria, "and that's one of the first things I did when we started working together."
Sakami - coffee specs
what to taste for
Aroma: magnolia, blueberry
Body: red apple, chocolate
Acidity: berries of all kinds
Aftertaste: caramel
PROCESSING your coffee
Only fully ripe cherries are accepted for pulping, each cherry is hand picked by our dedicated women, up to over 100 during picking season. All this is done at our farm and only dry milling is so far done with commercial millers. In near future Sakami intends to get dry milling equipment at the farm, to have 100% control of each green bean leaving the farm and being able to offer full growing and processing information for each bag.
ROASTING YOUR COFFEE
Special Roast uses a 22kg Probat UG22 roaster, that has been built in 1965. The roast time is 10 minutes. After the first crack, the coffee is roasted for a remainder of 25% of the time.
Relative PRICE BREAKDOWN
70%
The price we pay Gloria for her Washed AA lots. Other processing methods command higher prices, dependent on the extra work and resources they cost. This is 149% over the Fairtrade price. €0,20 of this price are the fees that Sakami charges as licenced exporter.
3%
Dry milling that is outsourced to one of the country’s large centralised mills owned by Coffee Management Services.
7%
Customs clearance, unloading and other warehousing costs.Insurance paid per kilogram of coffee, in case something happens on the road or sea and the freight and exporting costs from Nairobi to Mombasa, and Mombasa to the Rotterdam port.
15%
This Side Up compensation for purchasing GrainPro bags to secure quality stability, managing and overseeing the import process, organizing financing where needed, managing the packaging and export flow, dealing with import and shipping bureaucracy, Q grading the coffees, sampling for quality control and jointly promoting this coffee with Sakami Coffee and Stean’s Beans.
5%
Average financing cost we have to pay lenders - simply because we don’t have the money in the bank to buy such large amounts of coffee all at once. This ensures immediate payment to the farmers when the coffee leaves the farm or port.
Background of this coffee in the Netherlands
This Side Up’s Maarten called Gloria one day with a question. He was interested in importing her coffee, but he also needed volume. Gloria started searching for allies, women mainly, who not only wished to export but shared the same values and who aimed to change people's lives. "So, you mean we can sell our coffee as a group and make decent money?" someone asked, incredulous, as they did not know they could sell their coffee directly and avoid the cartels. However, Gloria wasn't looking only for volume or for farmers to grow her company. She was looking for women in the business, entrepreneurs willing to work side by side with her to change minds, open new doors, and find independence. This is how a medical doctor, a marketer, a banker, a beauty expert, and a teacher joined forces and came together: Susan, Dr. Rosabella, Jane, Gloria and Mary Tonje. Five progressive women committed to offering their very best and to grow coffee with the people from the region and to find a way to empower the farmers that have been chained to underpaid jobs for generations.
After avoiding Kenya for many years because we did not want to pay high prices only to support an auction system that benefits middlemen - we partnered with Sakami and Kenyan national (and coffee roaster in the Netherlands) Stean Fasol to bring a This Side Up-worthy, directly traded and fully independent Kenyan trade program to our portfolio.