Coffee Costs KSh 500 a cup in Starbucks, and KSh 400 a kilogram in Kenya. What's the Problem?

Let me ask a provocative question in a different. One day, some guy in America woke up (in a manner of speaking) and invented a drink. He gave it a ridiculous name: venti iced cascara coconutmilk latte. He gave it a ridiculous price: 500 bob a cup. Americans looked at the ridiculous drink, and at the ridiculous price, and came in their millions. They bought other ridiculous-sounding drinks like the grande cinnamon dolce frappuccino, and the flat white (otherwise known as kahawa ya maziwa). Even for the last one, the kahawa ya maziwa, they paid 400 bob for a cup. That guy who woke up one morning, a guy named Schultz, is now worth 4% of Kenya's GDP. Put it in another way, depending on the day, Mr. Schultz can actually buy Burundi.

Now, here's the question: we in Africa complain that we're being exploited. That if the guy in America is willing to buy the venti iced cascara coconutmilk latte for 500 bob a cup, the farmer in Nyeri should be paid 200 bob for each of those cups. But what does one have to do with the other? First, if Mr. Schultz (the guy who can buy Burundi) had not invented the ridiculous drinks with the ridiculous names and given them ridiculous prices, would we be having this conversation? What stopped Mr. Abdullah or Mr. Kibet or Mr. Opiyo or Ms. Wangari in Nairobi from inventing a ridiculous drink with a ridiculous name and charging a ridiculous price?

Why are we protesting the price differential between the price at the farm in Murang'a and the Starbucks in Manhattan, when I don't see a protest movement at the gates of the Kempinski in Nairobi? After all, a plate of 'batata harra' at the Tambourin Restaurant at Villa Rosa costs 800 bob. 'Batata harra' are simply fried warus. Aren't potato farmers in Kinangop deserving of their own Fairtrade movement?

Lest you think this is just about Americans and coffee, why are we willing to pay 90 bob for half a litre of Keringet water? That's double the price of petrol. We could simply boil tap water and quench our thirst, couldn't we?