Coffee

Currently Reading: The Jane Austen Book Club, by Karen Joy Fowler
Quote Love: “The first time her laughter unfurled its wings in the wind, we knew that the world would never be the same." - Brian Andreas

Yesterday we went to the home Wanjiru, of one my parents’ students, about four hours on traffic-y, bumpy roads out of Nairobi. Wanjiru’s father is 94 years old, and welcomed us graciously. The family grows coffee, so after tea to revive us from the trip (tea in the British sense, meaning food as well – in this case, we had mandazis, hard-boiled eggs, mango, papaya and bananas), we tramped through the coffee bushes to see how it’s grown:

The beans grow inside the red berries. You kind of have to bite the berry to get them out. 

(I mean, that’s how we were doing it. It might not be how professional coffee-pickers do it.)

They produce about 20,000 kilos of coffee a year…all handpicked.

And speaking of coffee, I have had two Malindi Macchiatos in the past 24 hours so I am feeling quite good about life. They really are delicious. 

I seriously think some Java House employee needs to come to America and infiltrate the upper levels of Starbucks until Malindi Macchiatos have taken the nation by storm. Or, we could start at the bottom and work our way up, introducing them to the local coffee shops first? It could start in Charlottesville, and from there, who knows. Maybe a revolution. (Yes, they are that good.)


[source for last image]