Coffee exports in Uganda have recorded the highest ever export volumes, according to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority. Latest data from the authority show a steady recovery of the crop as volume exports increased by 43 per cent from 3.557 million bags exported in the 2015/16 Financial Year to 5.103 million bags in 2019/20.

Coffee yield figures remained robust in 2020 and coffee bean exports increased, despite the disruption to supply chains caused by the Coronavirus restrictions. Home coffee consumption surged, thereby helping to offset the slump in sales following the closure of the HoReCa segment. Average coffee prices remained growing gradually through to Q1 2021. 

Back in 2016, Gary Hopkins saw coffee as an opportunity to bridge the communication gap between the Deaf and hearing communities. (The word Deaf is spelt with a capital “D” to distinguish it as a culture and linguistic community.) Years later, I Love Coffee has nine cafés in Cape Town and Jo’burg, and is a fully fledged social enterprise creating training and employment opportunities for the Deaf in the hospitality industry.

 
“It comes down to the fact that sign language isn’t really recognised as a language in South Africa, and that has led to great levels of unemployment,” says Hopkins, co-founder of the social enterprise.

At I Love Coffee cafés, Deafness is not seen as a disability.  

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When we visit the central café in Claremont, Cape Town, it is unusually quiet. The typical background music found in most coffee shops is missing. The quietness is punctuated by the hum of coffee machines, light chatter and clanging from the open-plan kitchen.

But the stillness is deceiving. A closer look reveals robust conversations taking place in sign language. And if you’re observant, you might spot the odd familiar word like “hello” or “cappuccino”, which customers are encouraged to learn.

Hopkins says a common misconception is that the Deaf have to work with an interpreter. “We prove here that that’s not the case.” The Claremont café houses the roastery, central kitchen and training facility.

For Leon Mhlongo, a baker, communicating with hearing customers is all about compromise. “If it’s the first time I’ve met them I use pen and paper to communicate, and if they want to order something, I encourage them to write it down.” A television near the coffee station teaches customers how to sign their order.

Covid-19, however, has introduced a new challenge – masks. “Everyone wears a mask. It’s such a challenge when you can’t see their mouths.” Masks exacerbate the communication barrier by preventing lip-reading.

Mhlongo, who has been with the business for a year, says finding employment as a Deaf person is a challenge. Before working at one of the cafés in Joburg, he was a porter at a hotel where he was one of two Deaf employees.

“Communication is often the main problem and the main challenge in the workplace. So, for Deaf people to find employment they end up working with the schools [for the Deaf] or asking the Deaf Federation of South Africa [DeafSA] for support to find work,” Mhlongo says.

The 2018 statistics from DeafSA indicate that more than 1.6 million people are Deaf or hard of hearing in South Africa. Of those, about 70% are unemployed.

Mhlongo moved to Cape Town a month ago to sharpen his baking, breakfast preparation and barista skills.

“When we started the business our training programmes were informal but we’re now in the process of getting our training accredited through [the education authority] Seta,” says Hopkins. “Our view is that we will become the first accredited hospitality trainer that trains in sign language.” Hopkins says that empowering Deaf staff to become trainers will break the cycle where the hearing teach the Deaf, often to their detriment.

Employees begin with barista training to develop confidence and the ability to interact with customers. “From there they can grow into other areas, so some of our baristas have gone on to become kitchen hands and chefs. Some are learning to be bakers and we even have someone to roast coffee. But, beyond that, some of our baristas have gone on to leave the organisation and are now going back to university to become teachers.”

Shagan Fouten, who’s being trained in breakfast preparation, says working in an environment with a majority of Deaf staff is easier. “I know many Deaf people face difficulties because people think we are lazy, but it’s not laziness. It’s communication challenges that make it difficult for the Deaf.”

Fouten says interacting with retail staff can be difficult.

Hopkins, who didn’t know a word of sign language before co-founding the business, says every day is a learning experience.

“It’s very unfair to assume as a hearing person that I am more knowledgeable, more educated or more experienced.”

“Yes, our staff are desperate for knowledge, but we have to meet them halfway. So if I’m going to teach you how to make coffee, I have to be prepared to learn to sign. In this organisation, every one of our hearing staff is required to meet a Deaf person at least halfway.”

About 200 miles southeast of Sierra Leone's capital, agricultural researcher Daniel Sarmu made the discovery of a lifetime in the steep and humid Kambui Hills.
In 2018, Sarmu and two researchers from Kew Royal Botanic Gardens in the UK were on a mission to find the long-lost stenophylla coffee of Sierra Leone. The rare West African coffee plant hadn't been seen in the wild there since 1954, although it had been spotted sporadically in Guinea and the Ivory Coast over the years.

The rediscovery of Sierra Leone's highland coffee has renewed hopes that the uncommon crop could be cultivated and produced commercially -- and help to revive the country's floundering coffee industry, which was decimated by 11 years of civil war.

A rediscovered plant
After discovering a wild garden of around 15 stenophylla plants growing in the hills, the research team gathered samples for testing.

In their new study published this month, it was confirmed that stenophylla coffee is of high quality and excellent flavor, comparable to the best Arabica beans.

"Coffee markets are very interested in anything that's different -- particularly if it has good flavor attributes," says Jeremy Haggar, an agro-ecologist at the University of Greenwich in the UK and one of the researchers who rediscovered the stenophylla coffee with Sarmu. "It's highly likely that the specialty coffee market will be interested in it, and they may pay very high prices."

Stenophylla coffee also grows in warmer temperatures, which means it could help the industry in its battle with climate change. Stenophylla can comfortably grow at temperatures up to 6.8⁰C higher than Arabica, which Haggar says could offer the industry a potential lifeline in a warming world.

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This is good news for Sierra Leone, which is at the forefront of stenophylla's revival. But there's still a long road ahead before this rare bean makes its way into our coffee cups. The wild plant needs to be domesticated and further studied to develop better growth and management strategies.

Sierra Leone is one of the poorest countries in the world, so adding a high-value market could be a boon for its agricultural sector, which employs 75% of the population. One of the biggest challenges is funding, Sarmu says, but he's committed to seeing stenophylla in Sierra Leone's coffee farms once more.

"Coffea stenophylla" wasn't always a rare commodity.
While researchers say 99% of the coffee we consume today comprises of Arabica and robusta, there are actually 124 species of coffee. There used to be much more diversity in coffee types, and Sierra Leone's highland coffee was highly coveted.

"In the 1890s, it was stenophylla coffee that dominated the market," says Sarmu. It was the preferred coffee of the French, and traded frequently into the 1920s.
But in the 1950s, robusta coffee was introduced to Sierra Leone by the British. Robusta is a more productive plant but is generally considered lower quality. As both coffees sold for the same price, farmers started replacing the old native crop. Over time, stenophylla was forgotten.

At this point, coffee was more important to Sierra Leone's economy than cocoa (now one of the country's top exports). Until 1991, Sierra Leone was exporting up to 25,000 tons of coffee annually.
But in that year, conflict in the neighboring country of Liberia, led by Charles Taylor, spread to Sierra Leone, triggering an 11-year civil war. Farmers abandoned the fields, says Sarmu -- and the coffee industry disappeared.

These homegrown female-led ventures are looking to revitalize the coffee culture in Sierra Leone, while kickstarting its coffee industry with a highly prized local bean for the international market.

A new coffee culture
When the civil war officially ended in 2002, many of Sierra Leone's agricultural industries had to start over. The coffee sector never recovered, with annual exports falling to around 2,000 metric tons -- while Ethiopia, the continent's top producer, exported 234,000 metric tons last year.

Perhaps because of this, Sierra Leone has not developed its own unique coffee culture like some other coffee-producing countries. Rather than drinking homegrown products, locals can be seen drinking instant coffee from imported brands like Nescafe in the street market on their morning commutes.

Coffee was the second most important export for the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and among the world’s finest, just four decades ago.

The coffee bean is a Janus; both one thing and the other, bitter and sweet. There’s no middle ground with coffee. You either like it sweet, one or two sugars please, or black, strong and as it comes.

International Coffee Day feels very different this year. Introduced by the International Coffee Organization (ICO) on October 1 2015 to raise awareness of the product and the challenges faced by producers, the day has usually focused on how low prices paid for unroasted beans barely cover farmers’ costs – let alone support their families.

For more than 30 years the Morettino family had been trying to produce their own coffee on a small piece of land in Sicily. And for 30 years they had failed.

Arabica coffee prices on Friday saw continued weakness Friday after Conab, Brazil's agricultural crop agency, on Thursday raised its 2021 Brazil arabica coffee production estimate to 31.4 mln bags from 30.7 mln bags forecast in Sep.

While the world was hashing out the big environmental issues of the day at the COP26 climate summit last month, coffee farmer Leonildo Vicente de Paula was grappling with what he needs to do to keep his business afloat.

s Misganaw checks to see if the beans have ripened, he contemplates the price his company might obtain at the coffee auction in Addis Ababa and whether his salary will be reflected in the price.