African First, Always: Naming Coffee From Its Roots
Before we call coffee specialty, premium, or global, we must first call it by its true name and true home:
African.
Coffee is African by origin, by history, and by identity. From the forests of Ethiopia to the highlands of Kenya, coffee was born, nurtured, and perfected long before it was classified, graded, branded, or traded across oceans.
African Is Not a Replacement for Specialty—It Is the Foundation
“Specialty coffee” is a respected and useful term in the industry. It describes quality, traceability, skill, and excellence—and Africa has championed all of these long before the label existed.
But we must be clear:
- Coffee is not American
- Coffee is not European
- Coffee is African
African coffee is the original specialty coffee.
This does not mean we replace the word specialty with African.
It means we anchor specialty in African truth.
Specialty is a standard.
African is an origin, identity, and ownership.
Naming Is Power
For too long, the global coffee language has removed Africa from the center of its own story. Coffee is often discussed as if it was “discovered,” “refined,” or “defined” elsewhere—when in fact, everything the world values in coffee begins here.
When we say African first, we are saying:
- Respect the source
- Honor the origin
- Acknowledge intellectual and cultural ownership
This is not politics.
This is accuracy.
ACE™: African Coffee Education
That is why Kenya Coffee School champions ACE™ (African Coffee Education).
African Coffee Education exists to:
- Teach coffee from African context first
- Center African farmers, youth, and professionals in knowledge systems
- Train on coffee as culture, science, health, business, and heritage
- Correct the narrative that Africa only supplies raw material
Education shapes language.
Language shapes power.
ACA™: African Coffee Association
Alongside education, we champion unity and representation through ACA™ (African Coffee Association).
ACA™ stands for:
- African-led coffee dialogue
- African-owned standards and priorities
- Collaboration across producing countries
- A continental voice in global coffee spaces
Africa does not need permission to speak about coffee.
Africa is the authority.
Ethiopia and Kenya: The Roots Cannot Be Erased
Ethiopia gave the world coffee’s origin story.
Kenya refined coffee through quality, discipline, and excellence.
Every espresso, filter brew, cupping protocol, and flavor wheel traces back to African soil. To talk about specialty coffee without centering Africa is to tell an incomplete story.
African First Is Not Exclusion—It Is Truth
Saying African First does not reject global collaboration.
It rejects erasure.
It simply restores the correct order:
- African – origin, identity, ownership
- Specialty – quality, skill, excellence
When Africa names its coffee correctly, it also names its future correctly.
This Is the Line We Hold
Coffee is African.
African coffee is specialty coffee.
But African must never disappear behind the word specialty.
Through ACE™ and ACA™, we reclaim education, narrative, and leadership—rooted in truth, not trends.
This is not a rebrand.
It is a return to origin.
#AfricanFirst
#AfricanCoffee
#ACE
#ACA
#CoffeeIsAfrican
By Alfred Gitau Mwaura