The barista champs have continued to enjoy a fascinating week in Kenya as the guests of Café Imports, the Minneapolis-based green coffee importer that gives the most generous barista competition around: a trip to a producing country, all expenses paid. It’s bananas.
The winners of each U.S. regional, along with the U.S. Barista Champ, and the World Barista Champ have been treated to a trip like this each year since 2011, when the 3-year sponsorship began. The first journey took the group to Brazil; in 2012, the barista champs explored Costa Rica; and this year, they’re in Kenya. KENYA.
Café Imports announced recently that they have renewed the sponsorship for another 3 years, so 3 more sets of barista champs can look forward to amazing origin trips with this awesome company. Up next: Ecuador in the summer of 2014.
Barista Mag Publisher Ken Olson has been along for the ride in Kenya this week, documenting the barista adventures in the following posts on our blog, as well as on our social media.
Ken will have an article about the whole experience in the February+March issue of Barista Mag ”it ain’t over yet.
The incredible trip to the coffee exchange in Nairobi, farms in remote parts of the country, and visits with local villages, ended in a big-bang way: the baristas went on safari. The internet at the safari camp was a little iffy, so Ken wasn’t able to blog. But he did send me a mass of photos from the fourth and fifth day of this amazing trip, which I wanted to share with you here.
