Our Story

Tandem x Kamavindi Coffee Lab

This new partnership highlights coffees sourced from across Kenya through our collaboration with Peter Mbature, his family, and their exporting company, Kamavindi Coffee Lab. Working with Kamavindi Coffee Lab has connected us with a number of extraordinary Kenyan producers whose coffees and stories we are excited to share throughout the summer.

Peter is a coffee producer, exporter, educator, and a linchpin of the Kenyan coffee community. We visited him and his family in Embu twice this season — once ahead of harvest and again just after — to build on the work of the Retro 1984 Coffee Project, a sourcing effort begun by our friends at Sey Coffee. That project sought a renewed focus on traditional processing practices and classic Kenyan varieties, and the coffees we purchased this year continue that work.

These coffees come from a range of producing contexts — primarily estates and single-producer farms, alongside a small number of aligned cooperative societies — and forgo typical AA and AB screen-size distinctions in favor of a focus on variety and meticulous processing. Their cup profiles span classic Kenyan dark fruit and currant, aromatic tea and florals, bright citrus, and jammy tropical fruit.

We hope these offerings represent only the beginning of our work with Kamavindi and look forward to deepening our partnership with Peter and his family in the years and harvests to come.