Coffee Drinking Culture in Kenya

If you know my family, you know that we love to drink coffee, a lot! Some of my best family memories revolve around us sitting and talking over a cup of nice coffee. When we have guests over, we've been known to put down a few pots of coffee in one morning. So when I realized Kenya's drink of choice was chai (tea made with whole milk), I was not sure how I would handle the transition.

In all honesty, I'm not sure I've made much of a transition at all. When my mom asked me if I've been drinking a lot of tea here, I told her no as the whole milk has kind of turned me off. Kenyans, however, drink a lot of chai. I know people who drink it more than four times per day. But there's something about chai that just doesn't do me right.

So, instead I've resorted to the Kenyan coffee world. My two main hubs of coffee are at Java and Dorman's. Both are not what we would consider "coffee shops" as they offer more of a restaurant feel with coffee as a key aspect of the menu. But as I'm in Kenya, they are my best option.

My first visit to Java, I got laughed at by my previous host sisters as I starting walking toward the register to get my coffee. I didn't realize that Kenyan coffee shops are like restaurants, so you sit down and coffee is brought to you instead of ordering, waiting at the bar and then finding a place to sit.

While I love my coffee, and have found a couple places to go, finding coffee is actually a bit hard to find outside of tourist centers. Coffee is too expensive for the average Kenyan to drink, so I've only seen it in affluent areas of Nairobi. A cup of coffee can run from 90 shillings to 130 (about $1.20 to about $1.75), but those costs are too high for many Kenyans. So often times going to a coffee shop surrounds you with the middle to upper classes in Nairobi and other tourists or business people.The other option for some Kenyans is instant coffee. When I'm at home, this is what I drink, but ugh...instant coffee...

Because there are few coffee shops, those that exist are often crowded and too loud for me to get a lot of work done. I love doing homework in coffee shops back home. It's a good place for me to have enough peace to focus but also enough distraction to not zone out. So unfortunately, coffee shops here are not as useful for getting work done as they are back home.

However, I've also noticed the coffee here in Kenya is AWESOME! Again, like chai, places will make the coffee with milk instead of water unless you request it. It's actually pretty good, and at Java, they make it dark! So good!

While I've found my coffee fix at Java here in Kenya, let's just say I'm ready for some good American coffee!