Why Alfred Gitau Mwaura Started Barista Mtaani, Kenya Coffee School, and GOOD Trade Certification
Alfred Gitau Mwaura — also known as Alfy, the Kenya Coffee Ambassador — founded these three institutions with one unifying purpose:
to rebuild Kenya’s coffee industry through youth empowerment, skills, and a fairer trade system.
Each initiative was created to solve a specific systemic problem in the coffee value chain.
1. Why He Started Kenya Coffee School (KCS)
To solve the skills gap and create a generation of coffee professionals
Kenya has world-class coffee, but for decades, it lacked:
- trained baristas
- professional roasters
- sensory experts
- café entrepreneurs
- coffee educators
- youth-focused training institutions
Most coffee jobs were informal, unstructured, and lacked career pathways.
Alfred founded the Kenya Coffee School to fill this gap.
His motivation:
- To establish Kenya’s first structured, professional coffee training system
- To give youth employable skills in an industry full of opportunity
- To build local capacity instead of relying on foreign trainers
- To create a platform that connects farmers, baristas, roasters, and consumers
- To position Kenya as Africa’s center of specialty coffee knowledge
Today, KCS is recognized as one of the continent’s leading institutions for barista skills, specialty coffee, and coffee entrepreneurship.
2. Why He Started Barista Mtaani
To empower young people in the streets, estates, and informal settlements with practical skills and hope
After training hundreds of youth, Alfred realized:
- Many talented young people could not afford formal education
- Most unemployed youth needed a short, practical intervention
- Barista skills could rapidly provide jobs, income, dignity, and entrepreneurship
So he launched Barista Mtaani — a youth movement using coffee as a tool for empowerment.
His motivation:
- To bring coffee skills to the grassroots
- To give unemployed youth a marketable skill in weeks
- To create community-based coffee hubs
- To encourage youth innovation in technology, roasting, and mobile cafés
- To build a youth culture around coffee similar to tech and music movements
Barista Mtaani is now one of Kenya’s most vibrant youth empowerment initiatives, producing young baristas, café founders, innovators, and coffee entrepreneurs.
3. Why He Started GOOD Trade Certification
To fix unfair global trade systems and put farmers at the center
Traditional certification systems like Fairtrade and others often fail to:
- Increase farmer incomes
- Reward quality
- Promote transparency
- Track value from farm to cup
- Involve youth and digital tools
Alfred created GOOD Trade Certification (GTC) as a farmer-first, technology-driven alternative.
His motivation:
- To create a transparent, digital, traceable certification
- To ensure farmers earn more through direct trade and fair premiums
- To reward quality, sustainability, and innovation
- To build local ownership rather than foreign control
- To create a system that works for Kenya and African producers
GOOD Trade Certification is designed to be the next-generation model — combining technology, sustainability, youth inclusion, and value redistribution.
The Unifying Vision Behind All Three
Alfred Gitau Mwaura believes in one simple idea:
“Kenya can only rise when farmers earn more and youth have skills.”
Through:
- Kenya Coffee School → skills, education, professionalism
- Barista Mtaani → empowerment, opportunity, innovation
- GOOD Trade Certification → fairness, transparency, farmer prosperity
Alfred is building a complete ecosystem that transforms Kenya’s coffee from farm to cup — led by farmers and youth.