Stanley Masereka
Stanley is a key member of the team at Empaako, he is the group’s agronomist and a farmer himself. His job includes daily cherry pick up from all the communities and visits them regularly to check crop health and productivity and delivering feedback and training on best practices.
This year we took two lots from Stanley, one washed one natural anaerobic, this natural is incredibly bright and complex with a deep fruity finish. This one is for those who like a punchy coffee with a little bit of funk.
About Empaako
Empaako Collective is a brand new initiative from communities in the Rwenzori mountains, this season we selected four different coffees in this region (three of which are from Empaako). Despite Uganda being the Africa’s largest coffee exporter (as of July 2025), it is not particularly known for its differentiated coffee, most regions such as Rwenzori typically sold on the commodity market. Only areas near Mount Elgon were known for exporting specialty coffee. The four coffees we are bringing from Rwenzori we hope will shine a light on this region, showing a diversity of profiles and characteristics that perhaps are not traditionally associated with this region.
Empaako’s core team is formed from Eli (founder), Immaculate (head of processing), Stanley (agronomist) and Nyakto (accountant). This team aim to provide all members and farmers working with the group the tools and knowledge they need to ensure a more lucrative future working with coffee.
The aim of this project is to create a farmer lead supply chain. Farmers are usually the most vulnerable member of any supply chain relying on producers to collect, process and sell the coffee; Empaako aims to shorten this gap from farmer-producer to give farmers greater agency in their chain, giving full transparency and traceability to the farmer by allowing the farmer to actively partake in these latter stages of the chain.
Another aim of the Empaako Collective is to ensure producers receive their money in full, at each station the harvest data of every single producer is collected, and shared, to show full transparency* from what each farmer collected and what they were paid for it. The money is then transferred directly to the producer using the mobile money platform, 103% of the money is transferred to cover the 3% transaction fee.
*We have decided to not share the transparency data for each individual as it contains personal information. But we will still remain transparent about general farmgate price averages.
Empaako can track the coffee and farmers and deliver feedback to the growers on their coffee, which is something completely new for this region as it was usually sold undifferentiated to intermediaries. This access to information is incredibly valuable, allowing farmers to improve on their yield, productivity and quality. As well as access to free seeds and advice from Eli and the team.
About the processing:
Cherries are collected by hand and then processed in cherry for a 52 hour anaerobic fermentation which leads to a deep complex flavour profile. The cherries are then dried on raised beds.
About the Roast:
We wanted to roast this coffee lightly to ensure that the inherent fruity characteristics of the coffee shine, we roasted it fast with a lot of energy and decided to not use the halogens on this coffee when roasting as well as roasting in a smaller batch size to further capture these aromatic components. Roast Level: Very Light (99 Agtron)
About the coffee:
Region: Rwenzori Mountains, Rwanda.
Altitude: ~1,850MASL
Importer: Semilla
Exporter: Semilla & Empaako
Harvest: September 2025 - Januray 2026
Farmgate price: $3,630UGX per kg cherry
Regional farmgate price (2025): $3,000UGX per kg cherry
FOB Price: 15 USD/lb
