On the coffee farm she grew up on in Kenya, she says, the traditional morning drink is chai. The reasons are both cultural and economic. Kenya's tea culture has its roots in colonization, with the British bringing leaves to the country from India. What's more, coffee is more expensive than tea, making the decision easy for money-conscious farmers."Growing up, we'd send off the coffee for export, and then we would drink the tea," Nyamumbo, 36, tells CNBC Make It.
"With Kahawa 1893, we celebrate the rich origins of coffee in Africa," Nyamumbo says."Even though coffee's originally from East Africa, it traveled around the world to Europe, Latin America and eventually came back to Africa in 1893."It's a trajectory that shouldn't feel unfamiliar to Nyamumbo herself.
"I really enjoyed the work. I really enjoyed being able to perform at that level. It was very, very exciting, very competitive and cutthroat. It was a great skill set to be able to build on," she says. "It started off as a side hustle. But it was really hard to balance out because my job was very demanding," Nyamumbo says."I really couldn't do anything on the side except weekends. Even weekends was kind of pushing it."
By 2019, she had moved her business from New York to San Francisco and was earning the majority of her revenue by selling her coffee to Bay Area tech companies, such as Facebook, Airbnb and Twitter, for consumption in their offices.Until then, Kahawa hadn't received any outside investment or taken on any debt — but Nyamumbo had. She'd funded startup costs from her ample savings and hadn't paid herself a salary while the business got off the ground.
"It's been an amazing relationship, and it's been life-changing for the business," Nyamumbo says."I think the amount of exposure that we were able to get from the show — it went actually went viral in Kenya — so that was that was kind of a surreal moment to have."