Kenya - Muinami Estate Batian Natural

After returning to his childhood home near Eldoret in 2015, Stephen Nendela and his mother converted their six-acre sugarcane plot to coffee. The success of that first microlot led him to purchase a neglected 17-acre farm in the cool Cherengany Hills, reviving it as Nawiri—known locally as Muinami, his family name meaning “those who work.”

When his coffee lost money at auction in 2020, then earned a premium the next year, Stephen sought answers, tracing the buyer and hearing simply, “Your coffee is good.” The remark proved catalytic. By 2022 he’d traveled to Boston to meet Crop to Cup, and today his experimental honeys, naturals, and extended-washed lots rank among Western Kenya’s best.

At Muinami, visitors are invited to plant a tree instead of signing a guestbook, a gesture that mirrors Stephen’s approach to coffee—patient, grounded, and generative. Bees hum in the shade of acacias, crested cranes return with the rains, and the farm’s name, Nawiri—prosperity—feels less aspirational than descriptive.