Food & Drinks
Chini Ya Maji: The exclusive bar in a herb farm
Friday December 23 2022
Chini Ya Maji: The bar that is built under water tanks. PHOTO | POOL
I’m no soccer fan but I like how bloody-nosed it can get. I – like the rest of the world – found myself watching the finals at a bar called Chini Ya Maji in Nanyuki.
It’s called Chini Ya Maji because it’s literally built under two massive water tanks on a farm called Uhorero in Lolldaiga, a farm owned by a lawyer called Paul Nyamogi and his wife Merab.
They grow and export herbs from the stunning 23-hectare farm complete with an astonishing American-style house with a white picket fence.
READ: Weird ‘silence’ after 10pm the new norm
Because it’s not every day that we will watch the World Cup final together, he cracked a rare bottle of Glenfiddich Winter Storm from his extensive and eclectic collection of whiskies, gins and wines. [He quit booze. Wife drinks a cider in half solidarity].
The game was what it was; a duel full of spirit and heart. I bet on Argentina because I have always bet on Argentina. Every time I have watched them play they have played beautiful football, a football full of art. And when they fought they fought with heart, the kind of fight I root for.
After the dust had settled, and the losers had licked their wounds and paid their debts, we carried the bottle through the darkness, past the organised cluster of staff quarters, past the fields of herbs under the dark sky and through a corridor lit by light sensors, and onto their said stunning house, now lit like a Jack-O-Lantern.
They plan to turn their house into a commercial property, a place where folk can book in a tight group of 10 or 8 and experience the true farm life.
There are some massive-grade cows that like listening to the radio. [I hear it’s good for milk production].
There is a rock garden and a strip of a very picturesque area that strawberries and all manner of fruit trees grow from and a garden where the following day breakfast is set amongst young eager trees.
READ: A tale of car keys and last bars: I buried a best friend
The level of organisation on that farm defies logic seeing as all this is from a couple that had never ventured into farming.
Chini Ya Maji, in near future, will be the bar with a view of a herb farm. Not many bars can beat that.
