This was a relationship that started with a long courting period. Vava was suspicious of Holly’s interest at first. “I tried to read them because many folks came to me saying ‘We really want to work with you’ only to go silent after getting samples or just sending a rejection”, Vava explains, pointing out that she had numerous DHL bills before getting any business done. “It took them [Holly and Alex] to travel to Kenya for me to trust them”, she starts. “But today this is one of the best relationships I have. Holly is one of the few strong female friends I have in coffee. When I need to ask her something she is all ears.”

The North Star couple flew out to Kenya in February of 2019 and spent a week with Vava when they also ran a couple of workshops for Vava’s youth and gender equity project Gente del Futuro. “It was an atypical trip from the beginning. Usually, you fly to Nairobi and go to Nyeri, which is 1 hour away. This time we were in the car for 10 hours. We were interested in Meru, which is 8 hours from Nairobi. There, Vava introduced us to Mutai Kinyua of Deman Estate”, Holly recounts. Ever since then, North Star has been sourcing through Vava anyway they can, struggling to match the shipping dates of the lots they want to importers’ schedules, which are heavily weighted to suit Central Kenya’s harvest. “The regions are far and the seasons are different, so we literally miss the boat”, she laughs. 

This strategy was key to North Star because, according to Holly, roasters go to war when it comes to finding the best Kenya. “Quality is so high that this becomes the priority of many roasters. This approach is led by consumers, who will buy Kenyan coffee from multiple roasters and discuss who has the best one. The new season in May is a big deal and a roastery can get lots of kudos for getting the best quality Kenya they can find. But with increasing challenges in the supply chain, hopefully roasters will ask more questions”, she says. “With Vava, I have the confidence that she is working equitably and reinvesting in other community initiatives. That is what was missing for me.” 

Holly also points out that Kenyan coffee ends up being a victim of its own quality. “Too many roasters perceive quality as ethics. Specialty thrives on the narrative that if it’s great quality then the producer must have been paid well.” At the same time, she says that “roasters think they have a good understanding of the supply chain but Vava challenged us”. The narrative that “producers are poor and need the help of responsible roasters is good for sales but it’s designed to maintain a barrier, a feeling of difference between the consumer and the producer. We learned to prioritise their narrative over our own. We ask Vava how she wants us to represent Mutai and the other producers. That is the role we convey as a responsible roaster, to elevate their narrative.”