A trader will contact you with shipping and payment options after checkout. Please note: free samples are provided to commercial roasting businesses only.
Uganda, 2026
We’ve said it before, but we’re saying it again: Uganda is back, baby. Back to the days before the paradigm-shaking collapse of our longtime relationship with the centralized cooperative BUCOFA in 2019, chronicled here. When we say it now, we can point to how this claim has earned its resonance, and we can highlight the individuals who embody it. No one does so more fully than Masha Coffee, Sylvia and Alfred Achebet’s project that this year completed its first export of coffees processed at its new site, high up Mt. Elgon. Their story is worth amplifying for its success and how we believe it operates as a blueprint for more Ugandan actors in the near future, but also because it has been riddled with frustrations and setbacks—as true stories tend to be.
This piece is more tightly focused than our standard harvest reviews or previews. It is about one partner, what they’ve accomplished, the literal fruits of those labors now en route to North America, what’s on the horizon heading into future seasons, and how you can help. At the same time, it’s a reminder that doing just about everything right does not always make for smooth sailing.
To more deeply explore any of the additional Ugandan partners rounding out this new era, click on their image below. Otherwise, read on for more about Masha.
It’s tricky for us to discuss Uganda without retracing our company’s history, because—as most reading this likely already know—Uganda is where we started. Our work here began in 2005, and marked the country’s first quality-driven specialty initiative, a collaborative effort that involved establishing micro washing stations. By 2010, we had ironed out our operations to an extent that felt sustainable and showed us what was possible, but by the end of that decade, as farmer groups splintered and stations were eventually absorbed by multinational groups, we chose to step away and work exclusively with Ugandan-owned operations. In doing so, we learned that piecemeal agronomic and logistical support do not produce 86+ pt coffees. Consistently exceptional coffee requires a localized, resilient ecosystem, and an abundance of infrastructure dedicated to precision rather than volume.
It has taken us nearly a decade of searching for partners, coaxing financiers, recruiting producers and mill managers, and chasing talent everywhere we could find it—but right now, we really believe we have. Connecting with Sylvia, Alfred, and Masha Coffee in 2022 was perhaps the most critical turning point. The introduction came through our longtime friend Clare, who ran Quality and Education for the Uganda Coffee Development Authority, and who we first met just as things were falling apart in Bulaago—one door closing, another opening. In her role with the UCDA, Clare cupped just about every coffee that moved through the country, and organized its national harvest competitions. We’d long appreciated her help to aggregate samples and cup on our behalf, and when we asked her who in Uganda was doing the best work, she brought us to Sylvia.
But long before winning us over, Sylvia and her husband Alfred had earned the trust of their community through years working as a nurse and doctor in their home district of Kween. Sylvia’s progression from clinician to coffee producer replays a sentiment we’ve heard from many rural health care professionals: you need acute care to treat symptoms, but to meaningfully influence causes—stabilize income. She already had the standing and the space for it, including a giant tree on the family property that neighbors had nicknamed “the boardroom.” With help from Alfred, she launched Masha from the family farm in 2019, and as her profile grew throughout and beyond the community, more and more visitors began stopping by “the boardroom,” facilitating NGO funding for community training and outreach, which she used to build early infrastructure like solar drying beds.
Eventually, with participation exceeding the initial site’s capacity, the Achebets broke ground on a new washing station in Kabeywa, near Sipi Falls, at an elevation of 1,900 meters, with a collection zone running from 1,800 up to 2,400. In addition to the raw altitude advantages, this location and the mill’s construction were designed to be fiercely self-contained, in response to how difficult the place can be to access and how vulnerable the surrounding roads are to washouts. To mitigate uncontrolled fermentation from transit delays, Masha processes deep into the night as deliveries arrive, employing precise bypass demucilaging and temperature-calibrated fermentation protocols. Drying is equally methodical: a brief phase of full-sun drip drying and hand-picking, followed by controlled rotation in fully vented greenhouses over 7 – 12 days to slowly stabilize moisture content and water activity. The processing is supervised by Sylvia’s sister, Eunice, a trained agronomist who more recently earned CQI Processing credentials as well.
With the station complete and the team assembled, 2026 was set to be Masha’s first year exporting coffee processed from its own headquarters, and we shouldn’t diminish the accomplishment—they did it, and did it well. Using the sweetest, highest-Brix count cherries in the region, their slow, well-calibrated wet fermentation yielded a remarkably clean and vibrantly tropical profile, reminding us of ripe pineapple and passionfruit. At every sampling juncture, the quality has held up, and with nearly 300 bags produced, that is truly an accomplishment that we can’t wait to share once these coffees arrive later in August.
But as the timeline implies, things did not unfold as intended. In late 2025, as the season was beginning, Masha again ran into issues with its “impact fund” financing partner, Exim Uganda. Like the previous year, Exim did not disburse Masha’s approved funds until December, lagging behind the harvest and sending them into a scramble to concentrate purchasing. Additionally, they released only 60% of Masha’s approved line, ~10% lower than industry standard, forcing their hands in terms of milling and export partners. At that point, the situation deteriorated even further, with a much higher-than-anticipated milling loss, decreasing an expected 330 bag total lot size down to 290.
Even with all of the work, all of the trust building in the community and investment in the infrastructure—their trajectory was still derailed.
As far as intermediary orchestration is concerned, plans have been made to do better next year. This time, however, the best we could do was maintain a fair FOB price plus an additional buffer that will allow us to invest more in their operation ahead of the next harvest. Strategically, we’ll be linking them with Progreso and Root Capital for more diversified credit next season, and steering them toward The Coffee Yard for dry-milling. The link with The Coffee Yard should also help Masha level up aspects of their accounting, pinning them to a model in line with the cost-plus cherry buying framework that we successfully piloted with TCY this year. Thankfully, there’s no need to fix what isn’t broken—their wet mill did indeed yield strong volume of excellent coffee, so the priority is assembling the right pieces around it.
In addition to facilitating the right connections outside of Masha, we’re also excited to contribute directly to an improvement right on site—a kitchen. The washing station itself was finished only last year, and its conspicuous status as a shiny new spectacle has turned it into something greater than the sum of its coffee infrastructural parts. Like the “boardroom” once upon a time, this place is now a hub of all sorts. Agronomists and field mobilizers use it to hold training sessions and distribute seedlings. During harvest, farmers work their fields in the morning, then head to Kabeywa in the afternoon to deliver cherry. As we and everyone in the area knows all too well, rains often make it impossible to return home when planned, meaning farmers are often stuck waiting out washed-out roads well into the evening. Add in the 20+ staff working the station through peak season, and there are a lot of mouths to feed.
With all that in mind, the team’s proposal for a community kitchen feels extremely apt. For our part, we’re looking to raise $15,000, and contributions from roasters can go a tremendous way in bringing this vision to fruition faster.
In spite of the challenges, Masha is our blueprint for what Ugandan coffee can be when we have this level of processing precision taking place at such high altitudes.
What’s even more exciting is that Masha is not an isolated success. What’s happening there is part of a broader and still-widening pipeline of stellar Ugandan coffee projects helmed by Ugandans. This season, also from Mt. Elgon, we had even more logistical success with Norman from The Coffee Yard, whose coffees landed in May and have been ripping off the cupping table—at time of writing, there are still 4 lots with some spot availability.
Looking ahead to December, Barbara from Kwezi Coffee is preparing to export a mixed specialty container that bridges Uganda’s premier regions, combining lots from her homeland in the western Rwenzori mountains with early-harvest microlots from Mt. Elgon in the east.
Furthermore, we are preparing for massive scale in the coming year. We mentioned Progreso earlier, and gave them much-deserved attention in an earlier write-up on our work in Peru, and lining them up here in Uganda will prove to be huge. They are currently deploying capital to upgrade quality infrastructure across several partner cooperatives, all set to come online next season.
Yes, we really do mean it—Uganda is back. It’s not exactly the same Uganda where we started operating back in 2005, and the multinationals may still have their volume, but meaningful infrastructure for true, traceable specialty coffee is again in the hands of the producers. To us, this feels like home.
Get in touch to grab some of Masha’s 2026 export and secure your spot for the stellar seasons to come.
For us, everything started on Mt. Elgon.
What began as collaboration with this region’s farmers evolved into the relationships that shaped Crop to Cup when we founded it twenty years ago. Two years later, the farmer groups and washing stations we helped organize were transferred out of the Bugisu Cooperative Union and into a joint venture with a private company—one that was later purchased by a Swiss-based multinational.
Because our initial agreements were directly with producers, with exporters serving mainly as logistics partners, the impact of this transition didn’t hit us immediately. But over time, it reshaped the landscape around us. Groups we had worked with for years began to splinter. The private companies acting as our exporters also purchased coffee directly, and they would approach cooperative members and say, in effect: if we’re already buying your coffee, why keep paying membership dues?
On Mt. Elgon, our core relationships held, but in northern and western Uganda, the picture changed quickly. We became more reliant on intermediaries sourcing from increasingly fragmented networks of smallholders. The result was a pattern we knew too well: highly traceable but non-scalable lots that rarely broke 85 points.
View from Sipi Falls, Mt. Elgon
For the past decade, we’ve been working to change that, by finding and supporting Ugandan-grown talent capable of breaking the 86-point ceiling. Given that Mt. Elgon shares the same volcanic soils as our partners in Kenya, who routinely produce 87+ coffees, we’ve always known this was possible. But Uganda remains a volume-oriented robusta country, and specialty requires an ecosystem. It requires cuppers and truckers, warehouses and mills, agronomists and reliable logistics. It requires women’s leadership, youth involvement, community buy-in—and financing. Most importantly, it requires all of these parts moving together toward the same export goals.
Small independent actors—our key partners—are the least capitalized and the most exposed. Our plan depended on at least some degree of market normalcy, which has been scarce across the past five years. Still, bit by bit, we kept building. Bit by bit, we’ve exported coffee. We knew the right farmers. We brought in the right cuppers, warehouses, and mills.
Three years ago, every one of our supply chains in Uganda became fully Ugandan-staffed and Ugandan-owned. This coincided with the loss of our longest-standing relationship in coffee (read more), but it also marked the beginning of a new model—one shaped around partnerships with social-impact lenders like Root Capital, Rabobank, Progreso, and Exim Uganda. Financing farmers directly, especially those not organized into cooperatives, is difficult—but financing collection points run by known producers is far more feasible. For that reason, we focused on up-mountain infrastructure capable of collecting cherry from the right communities and bringing it down to where it could be processed properly.
By last year, all the pieces were finally in place—only for the market to rise nonstop through the harvest. The result was speculation, rushed processing, capital strain, and uncertainty. It stretched new partners working with new financing structures, yet four containers still made it out—proof that the model works.
This year, the financing bottleneck has finally eased. Sylvia Achebet of Masha Coffee secured Uganda-based impact investment through Exim Uganda. Barbara of Kwezi Coffee received a line of credit from Progreso. Norman at The Coffee Yards built an open-book, three-party structure financing cherry to parchment, parchment to green, and green to export.
Baner Washing Station
The challenge: intense daily rains washing out roads, delaying cherry delivery and making drying nearly impossible in some of Mt. Elgon’s best growing zones.
The response: different models for different geographies. Kawacom (EComm) relies on a major washing station accessed by trucks along paved roads. Kyagalanyi (Volcafe) operates small washing stations and collection points across a wider basin. Smaller operations often have no choice but to store cherry or parchment overnight and hope for enough dry hours to move by motorcycle before the afternoon rains return.
Our partners built their own path forward. Masha Coffee established a mid-sized washing station with solar-covered drying houses in an area often isolated for days at a time. Kwezi Coffee took over an abandoned 2,400 MASL washing station to stabilize cherry before transport. The Coffee Yards built a tight network of community collectors who can receive, sort, stabilize, and hold cherry overnight before moving it down to a central processing site in Sironko.
Masha Coffee: A mid-sized washing station with solar drying canopies for communities cut off during harvest. — Sylvia Achebet and her husband Alfred long provided medical services to the same communities they now buy coffee from in Kween, a small village about thirty minutes above Kapchorwa. During harvest, rains routinely wash out the roads, isolating the area and forcing top-quality cherry to sit overnight before it can be processed.
Over the past decade, Sylvia and Alfred built a network of farmers supplying specialty contracts as they could, and we’ve proudly represented their coffees for the past three years. They began with a small household mill. Two years ago, an EU grant enabled them to build a modern washing station and solar drying yards, and to bring on Sylvia’s sister, Eunice. An agronomist with a decade of experience, Eunice spent the past two years completing Q-cupping and Q-processing training while overseeing both the construction of the new mill and the operations of the family’s original setup. Last year, the mill was finished but too late to operate. This year marks the first time cherry from this community will be processed centrally and on time.
Kwezi Coffee: A small remote washing station turning cherry to parchment before centralized drying in Mbale. — Barbara is 33 and has worked in coffee logistics for more than half her life. She and her sister founded Kwezi Coffee to create a more equitable pathway—one where quality coffee earns quality prices without intermediaries absorbing the margin.
For the 2025 harvest, Kwezi is expanding into production in two regions: in Kasese (Western Rwenzori), where the focus is on naturals, and on Mt. Elgon, where Barbara is taking over the Ezana Washing Station in Bududa. Built at 2,400 MASL by an Ethiopian engineer who fled the war in Tigray and later resettled in Australia, the station sat abandoned until now. We hope to be Kwezi’s first U.S. importer in early 2026, though we recognize this year may serve as the proving ground.
The Coffee Yards: A coordinated network of remote collection centers stabilizing cherry before centralized processing in Sironko. — Norman, an agronomist from Kasese, built a name for himself as a major supplier for Great Lakes Coffee before its collapse in 2024. Independently, he built The Coffee Yards in Sironko—forty minutes above Mbale, at the highest elevation where the landscape remains flat and dry enough for processing.
The Coffee Yards began as a service center for farmers to deliver, process, and store their own coffee, but variation in practices made quality uneven, so Norman shifted to purchasing cherry and parchment directly. His focus on quality is evident everywhere: polished stone fermentation tanks, piped barrels collecting cherry juice for molasses and wine, spotless intake lines, ample shade nets, Kenyan-style beds reinforced for wet cherry, two color sorters, and Q-certified cuppers on staff. A group of women hand-sorts wet parchment under shade—and will absolutely scold anyone who touches coffee without washing their hands! A generator powers both the huller and the office. A welder is on-site building a wind-winnowing gravity table of Norman’s own design.
This is the first harvest where Norman has the infrastructure, team, capital, and green pathways to execute true specialty microlots. He’s well known for naturals; this is his first opportunity to show what he can do with washed and honey microlots.
Barbara Mugeni of Kwezi Coffee | Norman Mukuru of The Coffee Yard
It’s taken years of patience, persistence, and partnership to reach this point, but the pieces do look to be aligning heading into 2026—farmers, processors, cuppers, lenders, logistics, and leadership all moving forward on the same page. Our commitment now is the same as it was decades ago on Mt. Elgon: keep showing up, keep building capacity, and keep creating the conditions where Uganda’s best coffees can reach their full potential.
Jake Elster and Ben Heins are leading our efforts in Uganda this year, and this update comes from Jake Elster.
In mid September, Ben and Jake returned from two weeks in East Africa—traversing a well-worn path spanning Kenya, Uganda, and Tanzania, meeting with partners, reflecting on last season’s triumphs and tribulations, and calibrating expectations for the year ahead.
Across the board, the focus was on grappling with change: new export systems, infrastructure investments, and local leadership are steering these regions in new directions, and we need to ensure that we can follow and adjust accordingly.
Kenya — The Western Rift Valley Coffee Caucus is organizing around last year’s direct-export success, targeting first milling in mid-January. Samples: February–March | Arrivals: May–June.
Uganda — Harvest is just beginning, with prime collections in November–December and three key partnerships driving a bumper season. Samples: November–December | Arrivals: February–April.
Tanzania — Harvest is complete in the south and peaking in the north. Expect standout separations from Iyenga Cooperative and expanded centrally processed lots from northern partners. Samples: October–November | Arrivals: December–January.
Eldoret sits high in Kenya’s Rift Valley, better known for its champion distance runners than its coffee. But not so far west of the city, coffee is warming up for its own sort of victory lap. Reforms introduced in 2023 dismantled Kenya’s marketing-agent system and opened a system for producers to export directly. In theory, this system would have fewer layers and fairer pay, but in practice, it also stipulates new licenses, new agencies, and a pathway that feels more like a maze for those traversing it the first time.
Nonetheless, the potential undeniably remains, with few having seen the entire process through as clearly as Stephen Nendela of Muinami Estate in Trans-Nzoia. His first export under the new system was a test of both endurance and logistics:
“Once you start wanting to get into direct sales, it’s not an easy task. First and foremost, there’s a lot of documentation that you need to do.” Stephen said during a chat we had in August, adding in characteristically good humor: “up to now I don’t think I know all the steps.”
But by the time the process was finished, he’d touched every corner of the system, reading each line on myriad forms and learning each one’s associated costs.
The auction once handled all of that invisibly. Now every line item is visible, and every mistake costs time. From the farm gate out, a small estate touches a long list of desks and doors: a county pulping license and estate code; movement permits each time coffee travels (farm → mill → warehouse → secondary mill → port); estate-level grower-miller permission to sell directly; federal touchpoints for KFIS (plant/health), Kentrade platform training and access, Coffee Directorate (ICO registration, contract approvals, sample retention), KEBS standards, and food authority clearances—plus levies. None of these are conceptually hard, but together they form a cumbersome gantt chart—no one’s idea of a pretty picture. Add warehousing—chargeable by the day—and it’s easy to understand why many farmers would rather avoid this path. But Stephen’s goal—shared by others in the newly formed Western Rift Valley Coffee Farmers Caucus—is not just to move his own coffee, but to map a route that others can follow.
Last season, Stephen handled practically every aspect of the system himself—managing tasks once handled by collectors, millers, and agents, from trucking and permits to milling, bagging, and sample approvals. This year, he’s applying structure to those lessons learned: the caucus and its partners are streamlining services so producers only need to deliver to the primary mill, with reliable systems in place to handle the rest.
At every juncture, we and Stephen have looked to equate tangible value to each perfunctory role: the mill as service provider, the warehouse as independent custodian, the exporter as paperwork specialist. “When you see the actual numbers,” Stephen said, “you start to understand what value looks like.”
This visibility keeps everyone paying attention, but it also opens up space for experimentation. Muinami produced some of the first natural and honey lots on this side of the Rift—coffees that stood out in our cuppings for their clean fruit and even drying. These were possible only because Stephen knew where his coffee was going, how it would be priced, and who would taste it.
Western holdings tend to be larger than the national smallholder average—often 15–50 acres—with a farmer base trained by input-heavy maize, the region’s hallmark through the early 2010s. That equips farmers with many of the prerequisites for coffee, and also means they likely have room to scale. If the economics can demonstrate real returns, there’s no reason this region wouldn’t be poised for real success.
Little Swamps (Doris; Nandi Hills) — 2,200 MASL, flat land, irrigation drawn off nutrient-dense wetland, shade nets over raised beds, staged washes with separate waters, and measured soil corrections. Only 13 of 45 acres are planted. Doris, the owner, could not be a more encouraging spokesperson for coffee: she hands seedlings to women working on the farm to seed new plots at home, telling them that “when you talk to the plant, it smiles back at you.” It’s a line we tease her for, but a method we take seriously.
Big Tree (Paul) — A surgeon who came home from Murang’a to farm. He planted SL28 and Batian, heavy on organic matter at planting, then built a tight, orderly approach to naturals and washed: float, overnight cherry soaks in barrels, and a 30+ day covered dry. His first two harvests were humbling, but year’s lots were standouts. Next up: shade expansion, SL’s coming to maturity, and deeper participation in the Caucus.
Ruguru Orchards (Felista Njoki; with George, Kevin, and manager Lusweti) — Early Batian plantings (14 acres) on a family operation finding its footing again. George, who had sworn off coffee for dairy and avocados, walked out of a Caucus meeting convinced—and loud about it—setting a goal to plant 20 more acres and out-cup his neighbors this season.
Chepsangor Hills (Rosebella; Nandi) — A reference point and a bridge between Nandi and Trans Nzoia—part of the same Western push toward estate-level identity, farm-level processing control, and direct relationships. Last year, Rosebella hosted a fermentation workshop with Lucia Solis, producing two experimental/educational lots and establishing a fantastic baseline for more to come.
But alas, as we know—the devils are in the details. Samples have to represent reality, to move on time, and with the right paperwork. Secondary milling trims another 3–6% of volume past the primary, and dictates projections. And finally, the calendar: in the west, primary milling can finish by February; if secondary milling and releases lag to May, we’re not shipping until July, pushing arrivals later than we want them, pushing contracts later, and finally pushing cash flow and confidence. With the right service providers, and with a group like the Caucus negotiating for quicker turnarounds and rational fees, all of this is solvable so long as it’s tightly monitored from start to finish.
Bottom line: loads of effort, plenty of friction—but a credible path to long-term producer agency. Exporting directly should not mean going alone, and we’re doing our best to be meaningful company.
UGANDA | MOVING UP THE MOUNTAIN
At Masha Coffee, Sylvia Achebet and her sister Eunice completed a new high-elevation (~2400 MASL) washing station last year and expanded their solar-drying capacity, letting them process more of the cherry they once sold to traders. Masha’s strong track record has brought new collaborations—roasters abroad, field training at home—and with Eunice’s background in agribusiness and QL1 processing, this station is poised to do more. Washed lots will remain the backbone, but we expect targeted honey and anaerobic experiments this season as well. The goal is to shorten the path from cherry to stable parchment on the mountain, then validate cup quality faster with a tighter feedback loop.
The Coffee Yard, led by Norman Musoke, is growing into a regional hub. What started as a farmer-facing central processing station and drying yard in Sironko has become a small washing-station network serving both commercial and specialty clients. Norman’s expansion has been a microcosm of Ugandan’s specialty’s ascent writ large: more volume, but better-managed quality control, stronger local buying structures, and clear delineation between services once bundled under a single exporter.
In Mbale, Barbara Birungi is digging deeper into specialty. After starting her career in export logistics with Kyagalanyi, she founded Kwezi Coffee in 2019. Kwezi now operates a dry mill in Mbale, sourcing from Mt. Elgon and Kassese.
For the 2025 harvest, Barbara is renting a washing station in Bududa at 2,400 MASL to process her own cherry—washed, honey, and natural—and we hope to receive Kwezi’s first U.S. import in early 2026.
Together, these three operations provide perhaps the prettiest snapshot we’ve yet seen of Ugandan specialty.
In southern Tanzania, partners have wrapped up the first shipments out of Mbeya and Mbozi. The Iyenga AMCOS cooperative our key anchor, with quality again outpacing peers in the region.
The plan this year is to ship fast, with the southern container starting its journey while we are getting peak crop offers from the North. A second container—expected to include Mwika and other relationship coffees—will follow. Southern cooperatives are learning to pace exports without compromising freshness or traceability, a balancing act that has long hampered Tanzania’s transition into consistent specialty.
Service-provider alignment in Western Kenya: The Caucus is negotiating for bundled milling/warehousing to eliminate punitive storage fees and to move secondary milling earlier. This will be the biggest determining factor for arrival timing.
Cupping autonomy at origin: As more estates set up basic labs we’ll be able to tighten the feedback loop and make sample selection faster and smarter.
Uganda’s drying infrastructure: Solar dryers, higher-elevation stations, and documented drying curves should yield more stable moisture/water activity readings and more reliable arrivals.
Weather aside, the largest variables remain the same as last year: how policy, logistics, and financing collide as we move toward the export stage over the next several months.
The best hotel in Iganga – smudging the line between mishap and miracle
The best hotel has holes in the floors, holes around the fixtures and an unexpected hole in the sink. There are holes in the bed covers, around outlets and in the ceiling where the light should be. The window itself is actually just a hole with a frame stuck somewhat inside of it – you don’t open this window, no, you simply remove the frame from its hole as instructed when sitting in an airplane exit row.
But a hole in a wall is still most of a wall between you and the town of Iganga, which doesn’t even get credit for being on my top ten least favorite places to be. In fact, while I lived there at one time, it’s a city I rarely talk about and would never recommend – to anyone really – ever except for the six unfortunates who I brought with me to sample the city’s finest.
The last 18 hours had taken a toll on us all, and we needed the day to stop –the only reason Iganga counted as a good idea. In the end the tally included five cars, our luggage, a birthday, some vacay, and over a decade of goodwill.
But in exchange we got a few flavorful vignettes, drank champagne coffee with new friends, hosted an impromptu dance party at a street-side squeeze, ignored a kayak competition and learned a few lessons we’ll not easily forget.
If the devil is in the details then maybe we should be looking for miracles in the cracks. It’s what happened here anyways.
At Crop to Cup Coffee Importers we subscribe to the mantra of ‘trust, and verify’. These are the two legs on which relationships stand. And any good partnership needs two legs to get off the ground, to stand up to the winds of change, and to move forward year over year.
With trust, verification becomes an easy ritual. Without it, verification becomes an adversarial audit. With verification, trust is built step by step. But without checks there can be no balance.
This is a story of our oldest relationship – with a group called Bulaago in Mt. Elgon. A place where trust runs deep like the rudder of a tall ship, allowing us to ignore the holes in this old sail.
Looking back, I should not have been so surprised that the boat capsized.
Bulaago Coffee Farmers Association – Jan 2019
“The rains are coming, and we have to go now”. It was true, that rain was threatening, but that wasn’t the real reason we cut the meeting short. It is January of 2019 and I’m up visiting the Bulaago Coffee Farmers Association (BUCOFA) in Mt. Elgon, Uganda.
It started well, with greetings and introductions, gifts exchanged of passion fruit for branded bags that proudly printed “Bulaago coffee”. So far so good – with 14 years under our belt, this visit was meant to be routine, a repeat of our annual to bi-annual visit. But then the storm came.
“You are lost”, started one farmer. Not surprising – this is a common way of saying ‘we missed you’. But then “you have been gone now for over two years, why haven’t you bought our coffee?” This bristled, as I pointed to the sales report which showed what we bought, how much more we’d need, and what we’d done to market their coffee over the past year. I pointed to the guest book that showed my last visit in November of 2017, complete with signature and the comment ‘your coffee is as sweet as your hospitality – thank you for sharing both’. This wasn’t what I expected – things were getting interesting. I moved closer, curious as to where this would go next.
Straight down was where. “Our store has been empty now for two years. We have been on our own, and while we are glad that (Mr. X) brought you here, we only found out yesterday you were coming, and I wonder – why are you here?”
Mr. X was the son of the village elder, a muzee (respected man), and a long-time friend. He had known about our visit for months, but apparently had not told anyone until the day before.
Just earlier that day we had paid Mr. X to rent chairs and a tent, for food and for a truck to bring all of this up-mountain. And then another payment for another truck when that first one failed. But on arrival, it was clear that there were no chairs, no tent, no food, and no truck. This money had been eaten.
So how did such a good thing go so wrong?
Looking back the reasons are clear, and I know better. So, the blame is on me.
First, I’d accidentally chosen to visit on a market day, a day when the average farmer moves down mountain to sell non-coffee goods. This left only politicians and board members to attend our meeting.
Secondly, I’d been lax, negligent. I’d not seen any meeting minutes from BUCOFA in over a year and hadn’t asked for them. Yet minutes were the only way we knew that messages got down to the farmer.
You see there is no cell reception up here, and no one with a smartphone either. So, WhatsApp conversations and emails got printed down mountain in the town of Mbale, and brought up to be read during the group’s meetings. While there were elected positions for treasurer, secretary, and chairmen, effectively the power went through those who could afford to move between the mountain and Mbale. And, as it turned out, this was really just one individual. You guessed it, Mr. X.
Thirdly, I’d failed to adjust to some seemingly unconnected changes. For example, X’s father had fallen ill the year prior; when he moved down mountain, his son stepped into the role of village elder giving him influence without oversight and an invitation to take advantage if times ever got tough for him.
Zooming out to the macro, another change is that – for the first time – cherry prices beat parchment prices on the mountain. This was due to competition amongst washing stations that started sending trucks through Bulaago with cash in hand.
Versus the BUCOFA store, which could only pay once a week. Once a week our purchasing partner would bring a truck up to collect from the stores with cash to payout. Weekly can’t compete with cash on delivery. Even if second and third payments made selling to BUCOFA more profitable, these payments are delayed. The result was that BUCOFA could not compete for volumes from its own members.
So, three seasons ago, BUCOFA decided to close their store and mobilize coffee to one of four collection points set up by our purchasing partner. All Bulaago coffee was kept separate, and for two years we enjoyed unprecedented quality and traceability. Volumes and quality were up – we had come to celebrate, and to encourage even more participation.
But this also meant that BUCOFA, as an organization, was no longer relevant. They no longer needed to meet as regularly, or at all, and so went the way of all other Ugandan cooperatives …
Farmers in Uganda, even members of Coops, can sell to anyone, and they often do. Some coffee goes to pay school fees, to help out a relative or to cover debts from the offseason. Some go to that nice buyer you met last week in the market, and some to your brother’s wife’s father just to keep him happy. Sometimes buyers can approach a cooperative and pay a finder fee to buy from their primary societies. Then the next year they’ll cut out the coop as an unnecessary middle-man.
And the cooperative model – which pays less upfront and more of a profit share on the back –fails to compete. It’s a system that was brought by the British, but which had not worked since liberalization in ‘96. In this way coops and associations across Uganda have weakened and failed year over year, leaving places like Mt. Elgon a mountain of individual farmers, and not groups.
BUCOFA was set up as a primary society along the traditional cooperative model. So, it seems, we had been hanging on to an old way of doing things. Coops and primary societies are officially dead – and so was BUCOFA they day they closed their store.
Two years passed, and I found myself meeting with a corpse of a cooperative.
“The rain is coming, and I need to get your customers down to safety”. This was how I ended our meeting, trying to save some face, and to buy some time while I worked all of this through.
As we piled into the van I encouraged BUCOFA to meet as a group, to talk, and decide what they wanted to do. In a typical zombie move, showing that they truly did not get it, they approached some of the roasters to ask if they could sell their coffee to them directly. Which would have been fine, if it was possible, but it was not possible, and in this context it was not fine.
On our drive down mountain I ran this through my mind, struggling to the conclusion that BUCOFA was no more. This had been our oldest relationship in coffee – the first group for whom we had bought drying trays and moisture meters, helped to open a bank account and maintain a truck. It was difficult to say goodbye, and impossible to give up. There are still so many good farmers, and so much good coffee, that it wasn’t fair for a few committee members to ruin over a decade’s worth of efforts.
So, I wondered, if not a primary society then what would come next? How can we communicate with and coordinate the efforts of nearly 400 farmers if they are not organized?
The answers didn’t come that day, but neither did the rains. We got down mountain starving, but safe. Our luggage, however, had moved on to Iganga. It looks like this long odd day was about to get a little longer.
You see, before Bulaago, on our way up mountain we had all three of our vans overheat. It was hot, but all three, at once – come on! We ferried some folk up mountain using a pick-up, and others stayed behind to hitch.
I was one of those left behind to hitch. It was in this crack in our schedule that we found our first little miracle. While we sat around a group of kids came up to talk. While we were talking the shyest one started rubbing my friend’s arm. Now my friend has a hairy arm, so I motioned for him to pull down the neck of his shirt to show the kid what chest hair looked like.
He did, and the effect was as expected. Tremendous. Never had these kids seen so much body hair! Next, one of the bolder kids asked my friend to remove his sunglasses. Which he did, revealing green eyes to equally tremendous effect. The kid then said something simple that simply stuck with me.
“You are not simple’. No, my friend, he is not simple. And neither is coffee.
I have a brother who invokes the word ‘sonder’ as a reminder that everyone’s life is as complex as your own. It’s a nice reminder, and an interesting word*, but in this place and time I was thinking that some days are more complex than others.
This day, for example, was one that I couldn’t quite write off. For every bad turn we found something good. Being without cars in Kapchorwa let us spend all morning with a group called Zukuka Bora. While we didn’t get to set up shop in Bulaago we had all the equipment to help Zukuka Bora host their first cupping, which came to be a high point of the trip. They’re experimenting; we didn’t love the honey process, but were pleasantly confused by the coffee fermented using Champaign yeast.
Then, later that day, we got a private tour of Uganda’s largest washing station. Yes, we had to rent a mutatu to get there, ours having broken down, and yes we were held at the gate by an irate guard, angry at us for showing up after hours. And yes, the car did refuse to start – at first – when we were trying to leave. But in the cracks we got to know Deus, their washing station manager, including an interesting discussion about scaling up drying for natural and honey-processed lots.
Yes, we missed lunch with farmers in Bulaago. But were able to reconnect with an impressive young farmerpreneur named Dison. And yes, I just made a frakenword of ‘farmer’ and ‘entrepreneur’**. Expect a separate blog on him, but I like seeing young independents like Zukuka and Dison as a growing alternative to the large mills, and our best chance at getting truly top lot coffees from this mountain.
Leaving Bulaago we chased our luggage to the greatest hotel in Iganga; and even this haul had a hidden gem in store.
This is where we introduce Clare, the heroine of our story and a true delight to have in the world of coffee. Her job is quality and promotions for the Uganda Coffee Development Authority – she’s the one behind Uganda’s Barista competitions, and who coordinates their participation in AFCA’s Taste of Harvest auction. She’s a Q-grader, R-cupper and trainer extraordinaire.
More, she was the one responsible for getting us out of the day’s car mess and past the angry guard. She coordinated the reconnect with Dison, and felt the brunt of the Bulaago fail. And today was her birthday.
So the plan was to spring for a nice hotel and a bottle of red wine for her once we got to Jinja.
However, with the day so delayed it was already night, and us chasing our luggage to Iganga, this plan was no longer a possibility. So, instead, we stopped by a roadside cellphone shop turned bar. These juke joints are called Kafundas, which means ‘the squeeze’ because of how tightly they pack in people, DJs, and a pool table.
Buying beer for the group I looked up and to the far left of the bar. On the back of the top shelf sat a forgotten bottle, covered in dust. It was either sherry, or port oh, maybe – and tis would be a rarity – red wine. Red wine is all that Clare takes (no beer for her), and despite a few fancy hotels we hadn’t found a sip so far this trip. But here it was, hidden in the back of this loud-ass can be Kafunda, a dusty little miracle.
A miracle that blossomed as we navigated price (there was none so we had to make one up), glass (okay, I could buy a glass no problem – okay, this can be included in the price) and then – how to open the bottle without a corkscrew. And which climaxed with three grown men competing to see who could pull the cork using a nail – most attempts to pull the cork out using a nail led to smacking your own face. Which got them angry enough to try harder, leading to a harder smack, which got them angry enough to try faster. Until the next person stepped in to take over.
I ended up pushing the cork in, of course, and passing it around while dancing outside the Kafunda. So, in the end, Clare has something nice by which to remember her birthday.
A nice stop, but the day continued. We boarded back into the cars for the final leg to Iganga.
I heard a wilderness survival instruction say ‘all bleeding will stop. The question is what you are doing when it does’. I’ve applied this my life – ‘meetings will end, the question is how,’ or if I’m going through something unpleasant ‘It’s not when or if, but how I get through this’. For me the phrase ‘all bleeding stops’ is a reminder of ‘lets make the most’ with ‘manage against the curve’ and ‘this too shall change’.
I bring it up here as a way to skip over my night at the best hotel in Iganga. We got through the night, and on to Jinja the next morning.
Jinja, the source of the Nile, and where we’d intended to spend the night before. We arrived too late to get on the water, but sat as sun set, looking over it, ignoring the kayak competition that was going on below, and toasting to the last 24 hours.
As the kayakers came up to the bar the band began to play, and I retreated to my tent for a little decompression. Just me and the monkeys, a beautiful view and a pint of beer. That’s where it came to me, the last little miracle of the day – a new way of looking at our work in Bulaago.
Bulaago Coffee Farmers Association (BUCOFA) was modeled after a Primary Society in a Cooperative. Primary Societies are one way, the old way, of centralizing a large coffee catch-basin. But if a centralized committee was no longer the way of the mountain, what would a decentralized model look like?
And was where an old memory brings back VSLAs to save the day.
Village Saving and Loan Associations (VSLA) to Address Bulaago Challenges
VSLAs (Village Saving and Loan Associations) are pretty unique to Uganda. Picture a lock-box with three keys, each given to members who live on far sides of the community. They can include 8 to 40 farmers who pool their incomes to lend out to members at an interest rate of around 10% (exceptional – especially when compared to traditional bank loans at 24% – 36%). They are like SACCOs or savings groups found in other countries, but without external regulation. Plus, Uganda has a long tradition of these community-level savings groups who have flourished far from the banking grid.
There are VSLAs in place throughout Bulaago, and they already serve as a nexus for some types of training. The idea I had was that perhaps they could also serve as a means of mobilizing coffee, organizing community lots and facilitating communication without needing a central body. I checked this idea out by a few friends in the area who agreed VSLAs are strong, they meet monthly with full participation – including many women – and that they could be engaged to get more active in coffee.
The next miracle was waiting on the other end of one of these phone calls. I learned that USAID-funded nonprofits are actively supporting community savings groups through training and capacity building – allowing us to piggy-back on these efforts to strengthen VSLAs in Bulaago. In fact, plans for this are already in motion and we expect meetings to begin by end of March 2019.
I’m still sitting at my tent overlooking the Nile when the next Tetris piece drops into place. VSLAs can be combined with an idea imported from other parts – Youth Teams. Youth Teams are trained groups of unemployed men and women, 18 – 24 years old, who provide services to their community at a fee. If you can connect Youth Teams to VSLAs you now have a means of organizing coffee, improving quality, administering premiums and financing it all.
And so this is the 2019 – 2020 plan for Bulaago. We are free from the baggage of BUCOFA, and up one significantly ally in Clare who has agreed to help us in setting this program up. First step is a survey of VSLAs in Bulaago. With this we will have an entirely new way of communicating with and mobilizing coffee from farmers we’ve known now for over years.
I once read a t-shirt that said ‘never a bad day’. Feels hokey to me. But if you change it to read ‘never a bad day, only complex ones’ I’ll consider it.
I expect Clare’s survey and the VSLA program in Bulaago to progress day by day, with some days being more complex than others. I expect there to be more complex days for me as well, as we explore this new way of working. I’ll be in more direct touch with more farmers, for example, with a lot more that we could do in terms of mobile money, reinvested premiums, lot separation and quality improvement. But while I’m glad for what came out of the day described here, I don’t ever again expect to spend another night in Iganga. If I do then that means I’ve messed up again.
But if you so happen to find yourself in Iganga please let me know – I can recommend the very best hotel.
*The word Sonder doesn’t appear in English dictionaries, but seems to be a Saxon word that traveled through German (set apart) and French (to probe). The Saxon roots are interesting (to me at least) and can be found in the first response to the quora inquiry here. Today its use is tied to the Dictionary of Obscure Shadows which states:
Sonder n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own—populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries, and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk. – Dictionary of Obscure Shadows
**or is that a portmanteau?
View our current offers here to keep an eye on this coffee coming out of Bulaago.
Uganda is where Crop to Cup got it’s start 15 years ago. We started with washed coffees from Mt. Elgon in the East, moved to floated naturals in the western Rwenzoris, and in the past two years started supporting supply-chains on the northern border with Congo and Sudan. Year by year we come back to push the needle on quality, and have seen scores improve from 82 to 86 in all three areas. But that has been our ceiling.
Until now.
Our visit in 2020 showed us that sometimes situations can change quickly. In this case we have witnessed a fluorescence of quality-minded independents, young organizations who have set out to break the ceiling on what was previously possible.
HARVEST OVERVIEW. Record-breaking rains from September to delayed the harvest by a full month, left cherries un-ripened on the trees, caused massive mudslides and forced all coffee to move down-mountain for drying. But these rains ended with new year, and ended up giving an incredible advantage to anyone sourcing from the highest altitudes – like us.
Larger companies closed their operations by December 15th with full warehouses; they are counting on milling to make the difference between commodity and specialty. But as the sun came out in January so did smaller buyers, and what they (we) found is an open playground full of the best coffee we have yet to see in Uganda.
Collections are still coming in, and will continue through mid-February. In Elgon, competition for cherry has pushed up prices- and standards – for cherry selection, meaning that what is coming in is being handled better than ever before. In the west, interest in specialty naturals has pushed prices up from blender levels (-60c below market) to minimum offers of 160c over market for anything of quality. In the north, investments by multi-nationals, with funds from the international development community (namely ABI Trust) have forged a new specialty profile – best described as ‘orange creamsicle’.
WHITE NILE is new to specialty coffee. In an area known as the Alur Kingdom, inhabited by the Luo people, coffee and people flow freely across state lines. This is the North-Eastern corner of Uganda, a place where SL varietals took root nearly 100 years ago, and which have never been replaced. Initially, coffee from here was sold as a general Uganda FAQ – mostly for blenders and instant coffees. Coffee is collected as ‘sub-prime’, ‘ordinary’ and ‘super-ordinary’, roughly divided into thirds. Two years ago we zoomed in on districts we knew to have higher quality, asked for a fourth ‘super-premium’ category, and started seeing results. This year we helped to open a quality training center – a roaster, green grading and cupping lab – so that the language of quality could get pushed even closer to the farm.
RWENZORI is a mountain range further south, but also on the Uganda/Congo border. This is where we find Bukonzo Organics, one of the few surviving cooperatives, and one of the few in the region to work on washed coffees. This is also the home for Drugars – Dried Ugandan Naturals – which only recently have been treated as specialty. Investments by nonprofits (Lutheran World Relief & ABI Trust) have revolutionized the way that coffee is viewed, processed, and sold in this area. For those looking at big-bodied naturals that are more fruit-lingering than fruit forward, this is the place to look.
ELGON is the traditional home to Ugandan specialty Arabica. Separated by tribe and region into Bugisu (who occupy most of the mountain) and Sebei (who live in Kapchorwa, Sipi Falls area), one can find profiles that range from effervescent lime to deep chocolates to tropical fruits – and many combinations therein. This is also where Crop to Cup got it’s start back in 2005 by registering farmer groups, revitalizing washing stations, and separating for the region’s first specialty exports in decades. Since then the world has caught on, and Uganda’s reputation has improved dramatically as a significant source for specialty. Competition for volumes have undermined traditional cooperative structures, leaving a mountain full of individuals. But in the past two years we’ve seen local independents rise up, with their neighbors, to seek specialty markets of their own. These groups operate outside of mainstream exporters, and without the benefit of their resources. But trust, leadership, hustle, and the passionate investment of a few select individuals has brought new options to market for those who care to take a bet on the underdog.
OUR APPROACH. This is where we come in.
Our 2020 import plan looks to support these emerging groups, which we’ve come to see as the ‘heart, soul and head’ of Ugandan coffee, and the future of specialty on Mt. Elgon.
Mountain View Coffee has brought in western cuppers, Colombian production managers, central drying and pulping stations, and even weather stations to monitor every aspect of their coffee. Their operation is purely organic, and built from the primary societies of the now defunct Gumutindo Coopreative.
Zukuku Bora has brought their community development work into coffee, using their network and skills in mobilization to promote the most immaculate of cherry collection. Their operation is an offshoot of a nonprofit, Jenga CDO, and run entirely by young Ugandans.
Mamboo Coffee has brought decades of experience and relationships to cherry-pick the very best farmers on the mountain, and to make them better. Their operation is centered on the passion and expertise of Dison Kareng, and held together by the decades of trust he’s built in his community.
Outisde of Elgon, we are continuing to work with Bukonzo Organics in Rwenzori – recent beneficiaries of a Luther World Relief sponsored impact investment. We are also expanding our support of the Kyagalanyi owned washing station in Erussi, who are trying to raise the bar on what’s possible from this region.
2020 VISIT SUMMARY. Halfway through our 2020 visit we realized that it could best be described as a heist movie, one where we’re getting the gang together. We met with friends new and old, from exporters, mills, financiers, cuppers and farmers. The job – building a bench to support independents as they try to grow their operations to export scale, and get great coffees to market. The result – two new coffee shops in farmer communities – which act as headquarters for these emerging organizations. Contracts leveraged for pre-crop financing and a five-fold growth of volumes. Experiments with processing (black honey, washed naturals, and fertilizers). And plans to expand even more for next year with new washing stations.
TIMING. Those who come first (in exports) may come last (in quality). We are targeting peak collections from the highest altitude zones in every area we work. This gives us tremendous advantages in selecting the very best coffees – even within a cooperative structure where separation can become political. And, this year, it gave us advantages in terms of weather and competition from larger buyers, who largely stopped buying before the new year.
>Mt. Elgon: February samples, April/May shipment, June/July arrivals (post-Covid correction; July – September arrivals)
>Rwenzori & White Nile: November/December samples, January/February shipments, March/April arrivals.
NEWS. Headlines in Uganda are dominated by the upcoming 2021 elections, where President Museveni is expected to take yet another term in office over upstart rapper-turned-politician Bobi Wine. Mudslides in Mt. Elgon wiped our over 1,400 homes this harvest season, displacing many, many of whom will never be able to move back. In coffee, cherry price have outpaced parchment prices; normally the ratio is 5 KG cherry = 1 KG parchment, and the price had been the same. Now cherries are priced more on a 4:1 ratio, encouraging farmers to deliver to wet-mills who have been better able to control processing – and drying times. Talent from all over the world (mainly Colombia) has come over to oversee the production o honey and natural-processed coffees. And Mountain View Coffee brought organics back to Mt. Elgon.
CURRENT CHALLENGES. Weather is the number one challenge faced by farmers this season. Prolonged rains pushed back the harvest, lead to cherries lingering on trees – many of which never turned red – and facilitated the spread of both Coffee Berry Disease and Leaf Rust. Drying was also a challenge as groups ran out of drying space and had to scramble to find secondary sites down-mountain. For independents the cost of capital remains a barrier; local interest rates hover around 28%, compared to the less than 2% rates obtained by multi-nationals. And in it all Ugandan specialty struggles to be taken seriously by the US market, meaning that those who do persevere have a hard time finding prices to reward their efforts.
OUTCOMES. Looking back, the 2020 season will be viewed as a fresh start for specialty in Uganda. New groups have risen to the challenge and, with the support of many, are getting their coffees to market for the first time. This makes it the perfect time to get involved for any roaster who is looking to get in on ground floor in what will be the future of specialty in Uganda.
For Crop to Cup, the 2020 season is all the more rewarding due to the depth of our relationships there. Not only is it satisfying to see the right people doing the right things, but we now know that the 86 point ceiling is artificial, and soon to be broken. In Mt. Elgon there’s no reason why quality can’t match that of Kenya, located just on the other side of the mountain, with the same language, trees and terroir. In the north, heirloom varietals combine with low production to give coffee the conditions it needs to succeed. Aligning incentives towards this end is what we enjoy doing most. In Rwenzori we’ve been happy to see Bukonzo Organics adopt a business mindset, expand their production and their capabilities to compete.
Only one stretch of land produces Arabica in the Ugandan region called the Rwenzori Range. This area primarily produces Drugar, or “Dried Ugandan Arabica,” a commodity coffee. In late 2014, Crop to Cup began working with Kika Cooperative here to produce a premium Drugar. Under the leadership of a premium group of farmers within their cooperative, Kika Cooperative built raised drying beds and brought bins to float berries. The 2015 Harvest will reflect the improvements in quality from the work Kika Cooperative puts into their coffee. In early 2015, Crop to Cup also started working with Bukonzo Organics, a group of women who produce specialty washed Arabica coffee in the Rwenzori Range. They have built a network of 12 micro-washing stations and take immense pride in their work, especially their washing process, which sets them apart from their neighbors.
If you would like more than 8 samples, please contact a trader directly.