Jamii (Jah-Mee) means Community in Swahili. We are based in Portland, Oregon specializing in importing coffee from Kenya. Our journey started with a simple promise, “if we can’t touch the farmer, we don’t touch the coffee”. We have created and continue to innovate our sourcing approach to be extremely Farmer-Centric. Our mission is to ensure that the farmer is empowered to produce exemplary quality coffee and offering a relationship coffee from Kenya that is difficult to replicate at fairly traded prices.
Our vision is to build coffee relationships that have mutual benefits to all our partners. We use our social capital, diversity in skills and experience to ensure this is a reality. With over 60 years of combined experience in the Kenyan coffee industry, our expertise extends from Seedling to Cup. Leveraging our sourcing approach, expertise, social capital, and our passion to improve lives, we developed our Empowerment Coffee Commitment. The commitment goes beyond providing high quality coffee, it ensures that there are mutual benefits, unique relationships and experiences and the opportunity to touch lives beyond the trade of coffee.
Our pride is in the quality of coffee we offer. Our team’s expertise is from Seedling to Cup. This ensures that quality is maintained along the entire supply value chain. We have boots-on-the-ground all year round and we are constantly engaging farmers and Wet Mills throughout the season. We provide farmers with advice on optimal crop management techniques and best production practices in wet milling and drying. We constantly improve and explore new production processes to provide consistent exemplary quality coffee.
As a grass-root organization, we have constant engagement with the Farmers and Wet Mills. This unique set-up enables us to develop our supply chain around the farmer. Our traceability system is based on the out-turn number. This system has ability to trace the coffee from Farm to Roastery. The coffee is identified by Wet mill or individual farmer, the miller, coffee milling week, coffee year, the sequence the coffee was received at the mill and the number of bags per grade. Look for the out-turn number printed on the bag and the stamped on a tag sewn on each individual bag of coffee. Decode the out-turn number.
We understand that transparency, integrity and credibility of coffee has intangible value to both the Farmer and the Roaster. Our more than 60 years of combined experience in the Kenya coffee industry have provided us with deep understanding of Kenyan coffee Laws and Regulations. We use this knowledge to develop systems that have intrinsic value to both the farmer and the Roaster. We encourage visits to Kenya, this offers the Roasters and the Farmers an opportunity to engage and discuss to create a common understanding of expectations. We are constantly innovating to “let the coffee speak for itself”.
Our success is measured by how many lives we positively impact and touch through business. With approximately 30% of the Kenyan population employed in the coffee industry, trade in coffee provides a huge opportunity for socio-economic empowerment. Our pricing guidelines are designed to ensure that 50-60% of the price the roaster pays goes directly to the farmer. We commit our social capital and the team's diverse expertise to provide exemplary quality traceable specialty coffee to roasters. Our aspiration is that the investment of our expertise not only provides coffee quality but also improves the quality of life in the communities we interact with.