Stephen Vick is, at this moment, answering a lot of questions from a very enthusiastic audience after the close of his lecture on sourcing coffee in East Africa. Stephen has been working in Tanzania, Burundi and most recently Rwanda sourcing and exporting coffee fr a while now, and he’s experienced and seen a lot of things. Stephen has seen a lot of sides of Africa—he’s well versed in the complications of conducting coffee business in East Africa. But I appreciated the point he made that the challenges are what keep him coming back. It’s not easy, but the rewards for everyone involved—from producer to roaster—can be great, and incredibly satisfying.
Stephen Vick. Stephen has worked for Stumptown Coffee (as a barista trainer); Sustainable Harvest (on the ground in Tanzania assisting producers with quality improvement); and is curently doing contract work for Intelligentsia exporting coffee from Rwanda and next month, Ethiopia.
Stephen shows a slide of a mill in Rwanda, which is a great example of how challenging work within the East African coffee structure can be.