Jubala Village Coffee | Best Coffee Anywhere. Period.

During the summer of 2001, Andrew Cash met Alex, a Kenyan coffee farmer. Andrew, an ambitious pre-med student at Wake Forest University was visiting Kenya in pursuit of what he thought was his life-long dream, to practice medicine with the people in the Rift Valley of Kenya. Each day, Andrew would travel with Alex to the clinic, passing by large coffee and tea farms, quite the unfamiliar landscape for Andrew. Taking in the breathtaking, colorful, lush rolling hills of the farms, Andrew’s dream progressively evolved. Meeting and engaging with the Kenyan people and learning of their stories changed Andrew’s perspective. Andrew continued to witness the medical need of the people. However, simultaneously, Andrew began to understand that it is the people who define this region, and to them coffee is their sustenance, their livelihood; it’s in their blood.

Coffee is the largest export in Eastern Africa. As the second largest traded commodity in the world, the coffee industry affects an estimated six-million Kenyans. These staggering facts caught Andrew’s attention and never left his mind has he continued his work and relationships with the people in this region.

After returning to Kenya on several occasions, Andrew’s keen interest in the coffee culture of East Africa continued to develop. Home to some of the best coffees in the world, East African coffee fetches retail prices as high as $20/lb.; yet these skilled farmers make, on average, $0.25/lb. This is the foundation upon which the concept of Jubala was born.

Jubala means Jubilation. Twice a year the farmers gather for a day of jubilation, celebrating and giving thanks for the harvest that will support their village until the next harvest. While the farmers have found ways to support the village on the little money made from the harvest, there is typically never enough to improve the conditions of the community in which they live. Andrew believed that by working with the farmers directly, he could sell their product in a market where a strong demand existed, then turn around and share part of the profits back with the farmers, helping them fulfill the needs specific to their community.

In 2008 Andrew attended the annual Specialty Coffee Association of America convention in Atlanta, GA. While there he learned that many of the industry leaders shared his same passion of supporting the growers. He also discovered a niche in the industry, a guild of baristas and roasters focused on the craft of the cup. After spending a weekend watching these baristas from around the world compete in the World Barista Championship in Atlanta, Andrew was all in, focused on bringing this wave of the specialty coffee industry to Raleigh, NC. His goal? Build an approachable company passionate for this beautiful and delicious craft in a community that he loves all the while continuing to humble himself enough to have compassion for the farmers where the dream started.

On April 1, 2011, Jubala Village Coffee opened its doors on the corner of Falls of Neuse and Honeycutt Rd. in North Raleigh introducing pourovers, latte art, and a new form of sugar addiction know as Liege Belgian waffles.