The Most Beautiful Seeds I’ve Ever Seen – Kebarika Beans

I originally wanted to write a seed history post on this seed, the Kebarika bean. Unfortunately, I have struck out with my research. Instead, I wanted to share the seed’s beauty with everyone and also discuss some of the information I was able to find. It’s an heirloom variety from Kenya and was probably introduced to the United States sometime in the 1970s or 1980s. According to sources, it first appeared in the 1985 edition of the Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook. It was later provided to the Victory Seed Company by seed conservationist Mark Futterman in 2004. Victory Seed Company has an excellent resource that compiles Futterman’s seed notes; however, for the Kebarika bean, it only mentions the years he grew it.

Beyond that, there’s very little information. It doesn’t appear to be an overly popular bean and has a relatively short life as a commercially-grown seed. I attempted to determine the word’s meaning in Swahili, but that led to a dead end. Also, the auto-detect feature of Google Translate read the word as being of Malagasay origin, which is one of the languages spoken on Madagascar, so that’s very confusing.

My plan is to continue researching the seed and its history in an attempt to learn anything about it. In the meantime, though, we’re going to see how it grows and tastes. It’s a shelling bean, so we’ll dry the pods to save the beans to be rehydrated in the future. I’m also planning to do actual seed origin posts in the future.