EAFCA COUNTRY CHAPTERS

People have been waxing poetic about coffee for centuries. It features in poems, songs and even operas dating back hundreds of years. Coffee has long been equated with the world of intellectual stimulation. Books have been written, relationships forged and, it is said, many a revolutionary thought has been spawned in a coffee house.

There are more than twenty species within the genus coffea, but only two are widely consumed: coffea arabica , native to the highlands of Ethiopia , and coffea canephora var. robusta , which originally comes from the more tropical environment of Uganda , where it still grows wild today.

The Eastern African region is the birthplace of coffee. The heritage we share with coffee is rich - the bean and indeed the drink have a place in a number of cultural and social rituals across this land - and a significant percentage of our people rely on coffee for their livelihood.

Almost all of our coffee is grown on smallholdings, some of which have been passed on from generation to generation. Coffee is truly a part of our fibre here in Africa.

Is specialty coffee a small indulgence? Possibly. There is no doubt that a good cup of coffee is a treat. Despite the fact that coffee is now a staple in the average household around the world, we still take the time to savour it, we still put care into preparing it. For many, morning coffee is more than routine, it is a ritual.

That is what specialty coffee is all about. Time and care. Right down to the roots. At EAFCA, our farmers and processors are committed to detail, quality, and quality of life.

When you drink coffee that comes from an EAFCA member, great care was taken at every step in the grand process, from the farmer in his smallholding tending to his crop, to the harvesting, to the processing. This is our ritual, this is our livelihood.