Specialty Coffee Wiki

African Fine Coffees Association

Properties3
descriptionThe trade body for African coffee — a member-based non-profit in Kampala that runs the continent's biggest coffee conference and the Taste of Harvest quality competition across eleven countries.
tagsorganization, africa, trade-body, competition, trade-show
aliasesAFCA, African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA), Eastern African Fine Coffees Association, EAFCA, African Fine Coffees Conference & Exhibition, Taste of Harvest, organizations/african-fine-coffees-association

11 min read

African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA)

The African Fine Coffees Association (AFCA) is the regional trade body for African coffee. It was founded in July 2000 and is a member-based, non-profit association that represents “producers, traders, government, and other support organizations” and has advocated “for the African fine coffee sector since the year 2000.”12

Its Secretariat is in Kampala, Uganda — Plot 104, Block 5, Kibuga, Nsambya — with representative staff in other member countries.1

Think of it as Africa’s answer to the Specialty Coffee Association: a membership organisation that does not grow, buy or sell any coffee itself, but runs the meeting places where other people do. Two of those meeting places matter enormously to anyone buying African coffee — an annual conference, and a competition called Taste of Harvest.

The eleven countries

AFCA covers eleven member countries, each with its own national chapter:1

BurundiBurundi
CameroonCameroon
DR CongoDemocratic Republic of the Congo
EthiopiaEthiopia
KenyaKenya
MalawiMalawi
RwandaRwanda
South AfricaSouth Africa
TanzaniaTanzania
UgandaUganda
ZambiaZambia

That list is worth reading twice. It is not a list of Africa’s biggest coffee exporters — Côte d’Ivoire and Madagascar are absent, and South Africa is in it despite growing almost nothing. AFCA’s map is an East-and-Southern-Africa spine with two outliers: Cameroon in the west, and South Africa, which is there as a consuming market and a place to hold meetings.

Individual membership is wider than the chapter map. AFCA’s membership page says its membership “spans over 25 countries, and includes both private and public sector stakeholders throughout the coffee value chain” — producers and exporters, green coffee buyers, service providers and governments.3

To verify — eleven countries or twenty-five?

Both figures come from AFCA’s own website and are not stated together anywhere. The natural reading is that eleven counts national chapters while twenty-five-plus counts the countries individual members are based in — an importer in Germany can join without Germany being a member country. That reading is an inference, not something AFCA states.13 No total member count is published on either page.

What it says it is for

The stated mission: “To lead, motivate, and professionalise the African coffee sector by building member capacity, creating market linkages, hosting events, and raising the value of African coffee.” The vision is “a thriving and sustainable African coffee sector for all stakeholders.”2

The Union of International Associations register describes the founding aims in more concrete terms: establish and promote a network for coffee production, processing and marketing in Eastern Africa and other African sub-regions; increase the quality and value of coffee production; promote production, processing, consumption and export; and promote sustainable production systems involving coffee and other tree crops.4

Note the third one — promote consumption. Africa grows a great deal of coffee and drinks very little of it. Domestic-market building is a live part of AFCA’s brief in a way it simply is not for a European or North American trade body.

AFCA publishes a set of strategic priorities for 2024–2027 covering membership growth, capacity building, advocacy, market expansion and its own financial sustainability.2

Taste of Harvest

Taste of Harvest is AFCA’s coffee quality competition, and the reason a specialty buyer who never attends the conference still knows the name. It is “an annual coffee quality competition hosted in AFCA member countries. National competitions take place in each member country, culminating in the Regional African Taste of Harvest Competition.”1

The structure is a two-tier funnel — win at home, then compete against the winners of the other countries — and it follows a written Taste of Harvest Protocol used at both levels, which AFCA says exists to keep evaluation “transparent, consistent, and credible.”5 That is the same problem Cup of Excellence and Best of Panama solve with published rules: a score only travels if buyers believe the cupping table behind it was run the same way everywhere.

The 2025–26 season in numbers, from AFCA’s own reporting:5

  • Nine national competitions across Burundi, Cameroon, DRC, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda (two — see below) and Zambia
  • A regional competition in Addis Ababa
  • Over 674 coffees cupped across the season
  • 57 African judges and 29 international judges engaged
  • Two national auctions completed — Burundi, and Uganda for robusta — with 21 lots sold and prices reaching up to US$52.25/kg

Two details there tell you what kind of competition this is. Uganda running two national competitions, one of them explicitly for robusta, reflects a country that is one of the world’s great robusta producers; AFCA is one of the very few quality competitions that treats robusta as a category worth judging rather than a commodity. And 57 African to 29 international judges is a deliberate ratio — the calibration is being built inside the continent, not imported. See Q Grader for what that training pipeline looks like.

The selling end runs through online auction. AFCA’s Kenya and Ethiopia Taste of Harvest sales appear on M-Cultivo’s 2026 auction calendar alongside Best of Panama and the Panamanian private sales, which places African competition lots on the same infrastructure — and in front of the same buyers — as the world’s most expensive coffee.

To verify — winners, scores and prices

No named Taste of Harvest winner, winning score, farm or buyer is documented here. The only price figure confirmed is the season-level “up to $52.25/kg” from AFCA’s own summary; it is not attached to a named lot, country or auction.5 AFCA does not publish a minimum qualifying score, category breakdown (washed vs natural, arabica vs robusta) or prize structure on the pages read. Any specific record you see quoted for Taste of Harvest should be traced to an official results sheet before repeating it.

The conference

The African Fine Coffees Conference & Exhibition is the continent’s main coffee gathering — the equivalent of a trade show plus a policy conference plus a cupping programme, moving between member countries each year.

The 2027 edition runs 17–19 February 2027 in Kampala, Uganda.1 The 2026 edition was held in Addis Ababa in February.6 Membership buys reduced rates on exhibitor and delegate registration, workshops, cupping sessions and “coffee safaris” — organised trips to farms.3

AFCA also books shared booth space for members at Specialty Coffee Expo and World of Coffee, which for a small East African exporter is often the only affordable way onto a European or American show floor.3

To verify — which edition number, and the 2025 conference

The research behind this note cites a trade-press events listing for a 21st AFCA Conference on 26–28 February 2025 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. That is a single secondary source and was not confirmed against AFCA’s own conference page, which returned an error when read here.7 If the 2025 edition was the 21st, the 2027 Kampala edition would be the 23rd — but that is arithmetic, not a sourced fact, and AFCA does not number the edition on its homepage.1 No attendance or exhibitor figures for any edition were found on the official site.

Who runs it

AFCA is governed by a Board of Directors drawn from the member countries, with a Secretariat in Kampala.8

RoleNameCountry
ChairmanJeremy MpalampaUganda
Vice ChairmanDr. Joseph K. KimemiaKenya
SecretaryNeng Delphine TakaCameroon
TreasurerMackson Ng’ambi DarwinMalawi
Chapter ChairNkurunziza FrançoisBurundi
Chapter ChairCharles Lwanga KasungaDR Congo
Chapter ChairMichael GirmaEthiopia
Chapter ChairNkurunziza AlexisRwanda
Chapter ChairNatasha WallaceSouth Africa
Chapter ChairDiana A. FatukubonyeTanzania
Chapter ChairFridolin StockerZambia

The Executive Director is Gilbert Gatali, who heads the Secretariat.89 Every member country except Malawi and Uganda holds a chapter chair, because those two hold the treasurer’s and chairman’s seats instead.

The name question

AFCA is widely referred to as having begun life as the Eastern African Fine Coffees Association (EAFCA), dropping “Eastern” as it took in West and Southern African members. The domain eafca.org is live and describes an African coffee body in AFCA-like terms.

To verify — the former name

AFCA’s own website nowhere mentions a former name, and neither its About page nor the UIA register records one.24 The eafca.org site read here does not clearly identify itself as an AFCA property or as a historical name — its self-description is generic and it names no officers, addresses or founding date.10 The “formerly EAFCA” story is plausible and commonly repeated, but it is not established by any source consulted here, and eafca.org should not be treated as an official AFCA domain without confirmation.

Why it matters

Three reasons AFCA earns a note in a specialty wiki.

It is the only pan-African seat at the table. National bodies exist — Uganda’s coffee authority, the Ethiopian Coffee and Tea Authority, Kenya’s board — but AFCA is where they meet each other and speak collectively, in the way producing governments meet at the International Coffee Organization. Its listed relationships with the Global Coffee Platform and the Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade put it inside the sustainability-standards conversation too.4

It builds the quality infrastructure, not just the market. Judges, protocols, training, and a competition that runs in nine countries a season is slow, unglamorous work, and it is what turns a country’s coffee from an anonymous export grade into lots buyers will bid on. That is the same machinery Cup of Excellence installed in Latin America from 1999.

It takes robusta seriously. The specialty world has spent two decades treating robusta as the cheap species. Uganda is a robusta country, AFCA runs a national robusta competition with a real auction behind it, and that is one of the few places the arabica-robusta hierarchy is being tested with money rather than opinion.

Footnotes

  1. African Fine Coffees Association — homepage (official) — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the July 2000 founding, the member-based non-profit description, the Kampala secretariat and street address, the list of eleven member countries, the Taste of Harvest definition, and the 17–19 February 2027 Kampala conference dates ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  2. African Fine Coffees Association — About Us (official) — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the mission and vision statements, the core values, the 2024–2027 strategic priorities, and the absence of any former name ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  3. African Fine Coffees Association — Membership (official) — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the “over 25 countries” membership figure, the member benefit categories, the conference and coffee-safari discounts, and the shared booth space at Specialty Coffee Expo and World of Coffee ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  4. African Fine Coffees Association — UIA Yearbook profile — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the founding aims, the 2000-05 founding entry, and the Global Coffee Platform and Finance Alliance for Sustainable Trade relationships ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  5. African Fine Coffees Association — Taste of Harvest (official) — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the Taste of Harvest Protocol, the nine national competitions and Addis Ababa regional round, the 674 coffees cupped, the 57 African and 29 international judges, and the two national auctions with 21 lots and prices up to $52.25/kg ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  6. National Coffee Association — Industry Calendar — source of the February 2026 Addis Ababa edition, as already recorded on Coffee trade shows ↩

  7. Perfect Daily Grind — African Fine Coffees Association Conference events listing — single secondary source for the 21st conference, 26–28 February 2025, Dar es Salaam ↩

  8. African Fine Coffees Association — Board & Staff (official) — confirmed via WebFetch; source of the full board roster with roles and countries, and of Gilbert Gatali as Executive Director ↩ ↩2

  9. Introduction to African Fine Coffees Association — presentation by Gilbert Gatali, Uganda Coffee Summit — corroborates Gatali speaking for AFCA; the PDF body did not render as readable text when fetched ↩

  10. eafca.org — read via WebFetch; a generic African coffee promotion site that does not identify itself as an AFCA property or former name ↩

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