Kenya Mutai Kinyua

We welcome back this unique natural processed Kenyan lot from producer Mutai Kinyua, owner of the wonderful farm ‘Deman’. A treasured partnership care of Vava Coffees which we have fostered for over 4 years now. Mutai has hosted us twice at his little slice of paradise in Meru County - beautiful scenery that is brimming with lush mango trees, banana and macadamia! We continue to be astounded by his unwavering commitment to the regenerative farming methods he practices and the lengths he goes to maintain an equitable distribution of wealth in the coffee supply chain.

Kenya has historically been a fairly complex country to source coffee from and it has previously been really difficult to form any kind of relationship with producers so we really value the friendship and working relationship we have established with Vava and Mutai. However, even sourcing within the stability of these longer term relationships can still throw up its own challenges. Kenya is still in the early days of coffee sector reforms that have been put in place to benefit smallholder farmers. Although great news for Kenyan producers in the long term, unfortunately the short term has resulted in massive delays in getting coffee out of the country. With smaller Kenyan owned companies, dealing in lower volumes impacted hardest. Navigating new regulations has proved to be difficult, with large volumes of green sitting waiting at port to be shipped. Unfortunately, not only did Muati's lot fall foul to this, the delays also resulted in us missing the shipment date with our chosen importer and leaving us in a sticky situation as to how we were going to get this coffee into the country. Throw in shipping container shortages, port congestion, uncertain weather patterns and the closure of one of the World's major shipping channels - the Suez Canal, by actions in support of the Palestinian people - resulting in a global logistics crisis which further hampered our efforts to get this fantastic coffee into the UK.

What we do know is that we are 100% committed to our producer parters and there was no way we were going to default on the contract we had agreed with Mutai. Vava facilitated a way in which we could ship the coffee to Europe and then truck it the rest of the way here in Leeds. Jump forward to today and all 23 boxes have successfully arrived at North Star HQ, albeit a year later than expected. Fortunately for us, the coffee had been vac-packed into 30KG boxes and sealed well prior to shipping. This has left us with a coffee that very much has something to give and definitely deserves its place on our offer list.

Once you have placed your order, you will receive an email to confirm it is being processed and then another one to let you know when it has been dispatched.

If you place your order before 12pm, we'll dispatch it the same working day! All orders are shipped with DPD next working day delivery as standard. Fully tracked delivery, with a one hour delivery window and real time delivery updates.

DPD offers the ability to change delivery address and date, opt for delivery to a neighbour or safe place, or redirect to a DPD Pickup shop, all while it's on the way to you! DPD aim to be the UK's most sustainable delivery company.

Operating times are 9am-5pm Mon-Friday. Orders placed after 12pm on Friday will not be processed until 9am Monday morning.

Local pickups take place from the Roastery on Tong Road. Please note our shutter doors will be down for security and temperature reasons but we are always in Monday-Friday between 9 and 5pm – just ring the doorbell on arrival

If you order 1-2 x 250g bags of coffee, they will be sent in a letterbox friendly package so that you do not need to be in to take receipt of your coffee.

Our 250g bags are 100% home compostable including the valve, seal and sticker! They will degrade in 6 months in a well managed home compost.

Our 1kg bags are currently in LDPE plastic - some councils will recycle this for you, if you are unsure simply take it to your local supermarket with your other plastic packaging.