Bay Area brewing kosher and Fair Trade coffees

J.J. Keki has big ideas. How big? Try 100 tons this year and 200 before too long.

Several years back, the Ugandan Jew went door to door in his remote village, hoping to talk his neighbors into forming a coffee cooperative. Now, the 1,000-member Mirembe Kawomera Co-op is producing 200,000 pounds of beans a year.

"I didn't expect it to grow like this. Last year we had only 25 tons of coffee. This time we expect to get 100 tons, so we are doubling almost twice!" he told j. in a phone interview from Uganda.

Of the 1,000 workers, about 300 are Jewish, with the rest either Muslim or Christian. Keki has been elected leader of the co-op.

"It's very unusual for me, a Jewish man, a minority, to be elected. My people are respecting me and they entrusted me to be their leader."

The fruit of Keki's labors can be enjoyed by Bay Area drinkers thanks to Ft. Bragg-based Thanksgiving Coffee, the Ugandan co-op's exclusive buyer. The progressive coffee company engages directly with farmers around the world, making Fair Trade agreements and cutting out middlemen. The co-op gets $1.26 a pound for its product, far above market value. Thanksgiving kicks back an extra dollar for every $10 12-ounce bag of Mirembe Kawomera coffee it sells.

"Beyond just marketing this coffee, we're enabling their work for peace in an economic dimension. We're saying, 'Hey, Bay Area, and not just the Jewish community but the Jewish, Muslim and Christian communities, help support these Jews, Muslims and Christians in Uganda,'" said Ben Corey-Moran, Thanksgiving Coffee's director of co-op partnerships.

"Together we can build this peace. We see this co-op as really the antithesis to violence and war."

And, he adds, the coffee is really good.

Keki's village is on the slopes of a volcano, and the Ethiopian-stock coffee plants are nurtured in mineral-rich soil and mountain air. The high elevation means the beans will mature more slowly, leading to more flavorful coffee. Like the mountains of Central and South America, Uganda is the perfect spot to grow a cup of Joe.

And Keki says this year's 100-ton benchmark is just the beginning.

"This year's harvest wasn't very good. With coffee, if one year you have a good harvest, the next year you don't expect a very good harvest. So, next year, we expect a big harvest," said the 45-year-old.

"This year, we get nice coffee. But next year, if there won't be a natural disaster, we expect a bumper harvest."

Mirembe Kawomera isn't the only option for the Bay Area Jewish coffee klatch. San Leandro-based Rogers Family Coffee has launched its Café Jerusalem line, its first coffee with the Star-K kosher rating.

Made with Fair Trade Central American beans, the coffee is observed by the Los Angeles-based Star-K Corporation from its arrival at the San Leandro factory throughout its roasting and grinding until it's packaged into bags emblazoned with an image of the Western Wall and Temple Mount.

Adding chemicals to decaffeinated coffees literally would not be kosher, but Rogers employs a natural watering process.

While all of Rogers' coffees now bear the Star-K hechsher, only Café Jerusalem is roasted to taste like the coffee you might buy in the Eternal City.

"We have a machine called the Agtron, which can grind coffee to get you any color. You can match the color to a particular style that comes from Jerusalem. We have our own roasting technique and we modeled our coffee after the roasting style they have for the beans there," said Pete Schmitt, Rogers' western regional manager.Right now, the coffee is only available in a few Bay Area markets, but Schmitt says he hopes to bring Jerusalem to the world in a matter of months.

"We wanted to put out a coffee that really said it's kosher. Most of the time, people looking at the product didn't notice the certification. We've made the selling point that it's kosher."

For more information, visit www.thanksgivingcoffee.com or www.rogersfamilyco.com.