Grinders in Suitcases, Espresso Machine in Customs and a Mission That Wouldn’t Wait

In the space of one week, JNP Coffee successfully delivered more than 800 classroom hours to women and young people in East Africa eager to gain coffee industry skills.

We all know boot camps can be intense for the participants, but this one posed a logistical challenge for the JNP Coffee team as well. The training was made possible thanks to four donated CEADO grinders that had to travel nearly 8,000 miles through four airports in our suitcases. And a discounted espresso machine from Simonelli was stuck in Dubai due to war-related flight cancellations. We finally got it to Burundi, where it had to spend some time in customs before it could make its way to our lab.

The grinders served their purpose beautifully in JNP Coffee’s lab facility in Bujumbura. And while our espresso machine sat in customs, several local cafes opened their doors (thanks to JNP Coffee's local network) to allow students to train on their espresso machines.

Why the persistence?

“Training is key to the economic future of our industry,” said our founder and CEO Jeanine Niyonzima-Aroian. “We need youth to be able to learn about coffee so they can stay in coffee,” she said.

“We have to share the opportunities of the global coffee economy with this next generation,” she continued. Our company’s commitment to coffee education is yet another way it makes a difference for the coffee producers of East Africa.

Second JNP Coffee Boot Camp

This second annual Coffee Skills Camp was offered by JNP Coffee in collaboration with the Specialty Coffee Association (SCA). The SCA offered Fundamental through Professional training in both Green Sensory and Barista classes. Our second Coffee Skills Camp followed the first-ever African session held in January 2025 to train on the new Coffee Value Assessment (CVA) curriculum.

Year after year, we have dozens of students on our waitlists to get into JNP Coffee trainings.  This boot camp met our goal for targeted outreach to youth, with 59 percent of enrollees in that category.

Students traveled from other regions of Burundi, and from Tanzania, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). They attended classes on three levels of sensory analysis skills and barista training.

They learned in both a classroom setting and hands-on at local cafés, taught by returning instructor Ludovic Maillard, Head of Training for Maison Jobin (NKG Coffee), and Ennio Cantergiani, founder of l’Académie du Café (The Coffee Academy) in Switzerland.

“There’s a growing coffee shop trend here and in neighboring countries around Burundi,” said Cantergiani. “This interest is clearly driving the motivation to take barista courses.”

“You can really feel a thirst for knowledge through the questions people ask,” said Maillard.

SCA Representative First to Visit Africa

Boot camp participants also learned from SCA representative Katarzyna Zyzalo-Moczydlowska, who spent several hours introducing them to the role SCA plays in the coffee industry, emphasizing the need for more Authorized SCA Trainers (ASTs) and judges in Africa.

Students progressing to professional-level certification should become local trainers, she said, a point reinforced by Maillard.

Her visit marked another first for SCA to have one of their own conduct a training session in conjunction with JNP Coffee.

Zyzalo-Moczydlowska also shared her career trajectory with our students. Growing up in Poland, she dreamed of becoming an actress. But she also wanted to work closely with people to share a gift.

That gift became her expertise in coffee. Beginning as a barista, she competed and rose to the world level for Poland. She became a barista competition judge and took on international roles for the World Coffee Championships. She recently moved from leading the Polish chapter of the SCA to becoming SCA representative for Europe, Africa and the Middle East.

She firmly believes that “we can build together a better future based on knowledge and quality education.”

Student Feedback All Positive

Civil engineer Ayub Salam has run his own coffee shop in Burundi for the past 20 years, but he hadn’t had any formal training. He appreciated the comprehensive breadth of our boot camp training, especially the practical, hands-on sessions. He progressed from intermediate to professional level during his training.

“Now I know what good coffee is,” he said. “I was serving it, but [after the course] I know what I’m supposed to serve.”

Curiosity led Gilbert Kapia to coffee. His curiosity became his passion. He wanted to learn all he could about coffee, the industry and its people.  Mostly self-taught, he discovered the SCA had programs. Then he learned our boot camp was scheduled in Burundi.

“The minute I saw the email, I didn’t hesitate,” he said. “I want to learn. I want to learn.”

An IT specialist in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, Kapia is considering a career move. The trip to Bujumbura was his first.

“I wanted to attain the certificates in the SCA, because it’s a powerful organization in coffee, it’s well known internationally.” he continued. “It will give me an upper hand as a coffee professional. My journey from Tanzania was worthwhile.”

More than one-third of the students progressed from a foundational to intermediate skills level, or intermediate to professional level, according to the instructors’ performance evaluations and the students’ readiness to take certification exams. And 32 percent of the students overall were women.

Contrary to expectations, the Coffee Skills camp experienced a surprisingly high demand for sensory training, noted Niyonzima-Aroian, especially among youth, who made up 56 percent of the class.

In sensory training, students learned the vocabulary to identify flavor attributes, cupping protocol, and how to assess different styles of specialty coffees.

The Barista classes had students practicing latte art, using grinders, and learning the finer aspects of customer service for specialty coffees.

Our Coffee Skills camp concluded with instructors and JNP Coffee staff taking a daylong field trip outside the city to see a wet mill in operation. The group also traveled to a coffee plantation to witness a harvest underway.

“I’m so thankful that the SCA was able to support this pilot project to bring knowledge to youth,” said Niyonzima-Aroian. “The more education you bring here, the more you open doors.” Her goal is to double the number of students served in the next training cohort.

There are several different ways you can support coffee industry education of young people: from equipment contributions, to direct funding, to purchasing specialty coffee from JNP Coffee.

Email info@jnpcoffee.com to explore your options.

“The only gift that I can leave behind is a gift of education,” Niyonzima-Aroian said as the boot camp came to a close. “If I can bring this gift to my country, it will be a pleasure to do so.”