Joys and Woes

As we reach the end of February, we can now chalk off our fourth month of full business operation. Our turnover has quickly risen over this short time, particularly with our coffee bean sales, and we have even begun to hover around break-even.

Whilst this is an important mile-stone, we are aware that we are still in a fairly fragile period of early business growth. In particular, the price of our main input, green coffee beans, has been steadily increasing over the last two years as demand for Nepali ‘Bourbon’ coffee outstrips supply and as the government sets minimum support prices for farmers.

Facing this challenge, our long-term goal at Black Kite is to source our beans from Varsha and Jug’s own community and surrounding villages in Okhaldhunga, East Nepal. If we can buy beans at the ‘parchment’ stage and process them ourselves, we can effectively cut out the middle-man. In the short-term, we recently ‘bit the bullet’ and raised our price by 9% in order to offset an 8% increase in green bean price.

One of the surprising joys of selling out of our cafe/roastery in Naya Guan, is meeting international friends and visitors from all four corners of the globe!

Dr. Dan Munday (UK) together with Dr. Naomi Gebre from Ethiopia, can be seen enjoying a  coffee on our cafe veranda this month. Both doctors had been taking part in an international Palliative Care conference at nearby Green Pastures Hospital, where Dan had been showcasing his work leading the Sunita Project. The new link to Dr. Naomi is an exciting one, as she is well connected in Addis Ababa and with Ethiopian coffee growers.

Also pictured are: German medical student Lilly, during a one-month internship at Green Pastures Hospital; Biomedical engineer Arjan from the Netherlands; a group of Nepali friends from Varsha’s church, and Tori from the US, enjoying a coffee whilst her children study at the nearby primary school. 

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