Kenya Sakami Gloria AB - Coffee beans - Speciality coffee 250g

Kenya Sakami Gloria AB - Coffee Beans - Selection Coffee 250g

Kenyan coffee is often ranked among the top 5 coffees in the world. One of the reasons Kenyan coffees excel is the “Kenyan Process” or double processing that the beans go through. This process is a rigorous double fermentation process that gives Kenyan coffees a remarkably deep complexity. Kenyan coffees often have an intense flavor with a wine-like acidity. Typically, the flavor profile includes fruit, citrus and dark berries. This highly aromatic coffee is exceptionally bright with great balance.

The collaboration with Sakami Farm dates back to the beginning of This Side Up (a green bean supplier). We met when both Sakami and TSU were still in their infancy, and we were both wandering the coffee world in Rimini, trying to understand the specialty coffee industry. We are proud to have been the catalyst for the formation of a new alliance of women, strong independent entrepreneurs whose coffees and faces have a permanent place in the TSU family.

The truth was that for many years we didn’t want to work in Kenya because we didn’t think our model of direct and transparent relationships would fit. We knew that the industry typically pays high prices only to support an auction system that benefits middlemen. However, after that first meeting in 2013, Sakami and This Side Up kept meeting through mutual friends who knew we had a future together even earlier. Ultimately, it was Stean Fasol’s formal proposal to form a collaboration that ultimately led to us coming together and offering individual Kenyan farms in 2020 in the otherwise opaque Kenyan coffee offering.

Farmers like Gloria and Jarmo provide stable and fair employment to their communities, have very high agricultural and regeneration standards. They have an export license, which means we can bypass a system we didn’t want to support. And we just so happen to have a huge network waiting for the opportunity we offered. This is how a doctor, a marketer, a banker, a beauty expert and a development worker joined forces: Susan, Dr. Rosabella, Jane, Gloria and Mary Tonje. Five progressive women committed to offering the best of themselves and growing coffee with the people of the region and finding a way to empower farmers who have been tied to low-paying jobs for generations. Over the years, the list of women working with Gloria has also grown. All with the intention of empowering and empowering themselves through the coffee business.

A FLAME THAT SPREAD ACROSS CONTINENTS

Gloria worked in the beauty industry, doing international shows, organizing events, and basically bringing people together. She owned a beauty salon and also worked as a makeup artist for films. Around the same time, she met Jarmo in the industry, who was an engineer for the Finnish government and did projects in Africa, especially Kenya. When their paths crossed, they started dating and eventually got together. They were looking to buy a house and got an offer with a farm that came with it. Jarmo had done a few projects in Rwanda and through that he learned more about coffee farming. If they were to buy this house with a farm, he was interested in growing coffee as one of the cash crops. Jarmo had also heard of farmers growing macadamia, and that was an intercrop with coffee! Gloria’s introduction to coffee dates back to when she was a child. She came from a coffee family. She and her sisters spent their waking hours brewing coffee for the whole family, especially her brother, who was particular about how his coffee tasted. Both Gloria and Jarmo wanted to grow crops that could be sustainable in the long term if they went through with the idea, not to mention they were at the peak of their careers by then.

It was clear that coffee had entered the Gummerus household as their obvious choice, but there was still one big problem. They had no market for the coffee they were interested in growing, and the local market was too political for them to rely on it completely.

They planted their first trees in 2010, and Jarmo knew they had to find a market outside of Kenya, perhaps internationally. They were well aware that they didn’t want to compete with the big players. So they didn’t want to do business in Kenya. As their coffees grew, they began their next quest – to find a viable market. They started going to coffee fairs to give out samples to potential buyers, but they noticed that some of them would leave these sample bags without much thought!

Jarmo first met Lennart in 2013 (Rimini World of Coffee). Although not much came of this meeting, Lennart still left his then-business card with Gloria. Years passed, Gloria and Jarmo continued to make the rounds, learning the coffee language and looking for a reliable market outside of Kenya. In 2016, Lennart crossed paths with Gloria coffee again, but this time it was a sample sent by Joonas, a Finnish roaster who was a friend of Jarmo. During the 2020 AFCA Farm to Cup exhibition in Kenya, Gloria met Maarten. Gloria quickly managed to convince Maarten with her charm and wit to join the cupping in a closed room and taste her coffee. Maarten really liked it, he took some samples before flying back to the Netherlands. However, this still did not guarantee cooperation, as Kenya's reputation for corruption preceded its coffee, and Lennart was hesitant about this.

Later that year, Gloria moved up the ranks and met Stean. He was a roaster who wanted to do direct trade. He expressed interest in finding Kenyan producers whose coffee he could export to the Netherlands. He knew about This Side Up and wanted to work with them. He agreed to consolidate a container containing Gloria’s coffee to the Netherlands along with the coffee he had purchased. It was then that the decision was made, Gloria’s coffees were flying all over the continent! And so began the Kenyan alliance between Sakami and This Side Up that turns a spark into a blazing flame! 

Flavor profile: clementine, black tea, sugar cane

Farmer: Gloria single farmer

Farm: Sakami

Processing: washed

Altitude: 1800 alt

Score: 85.5

Acidity: 4/5

Aroma: 3/5

Body: 3/5