Solai Coffee

Solai Coffee was started by Peter Kuria, a second-generation Kenyan coffee farmer who describes his dream as growing and expanding his parents' coffee business and changing the face of the Kenyan farmer. He runs it with co-founders Lameck Omariba, who grew up helping his parents on a coffee and tea farm in western Kenya, and Monica Kuria, who first earned a few shillings a day picking coffee at her grandparents' farm; John Kuria leads sourcing and marketing. The coffee is bought directly from growers in the Nakuru region of Kenya's Rift Valley, among them Stephen and Margaret Kuria of Liwani Coffee Estate, who have farmed coffee since 1984, Alice Wangeci of Wagika Farm, and Edward Barngetuny, a third-generation farmer working an 80-acre farm in Nandi County. Solai runs farm tours in Kenya so customers can meet the growers, and describes the direct-trade model as a way to bridge the gap between producer and consumer.