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Krogering

A couple of weeks before my most recent Kenya trip, the promotional interactive channel on DirecTV had a little continuously-looping film in which Lipton boasted about its fair trade and environmentally-friendly tea-growing practices in Kericho, Kenya. (Before you get too excited, they admitted in the film that they buy some of their tea from other growers, who don’t necessarily follow the same practices.)

You could use your DirecTV remote while watching the tape to request a free sample of Lipton Tea. This week, I got a coupon for a free box of Lipton tea bags.

Also this week, I got one of those glossy little coupon booklets from Kroger — in this case, promoting the worthy cause of breast cancer research.

So today, I went to Kroger armed with a fistful of coupons. Between the coupons and Kroger Plus savings, I got more than $60 worth of groceries for $36.12 (both figures including tax). That can be misleading if you buy things you wouldn’t have bought without the coupons, but in this case I’m pretty happy with my purchases. I don’t think I went too far overboard.

One of the coupons was for frozen Sockeye Salmon. Another shopper, a woman who had gotten the same coupon book, and I could not find it anywhere. Finally, the fellow at the meat department found some Kroger brand frozen sockeye salmon — but it was packaged in a tray, not in a bag as pictured on the coupon.

Sure enough, when I went through self-checkout, the system flagged the coupon as not having a matching product. I explained the situation to the attendant, an older gentleman whom I’ve seen there quite often, and he was able to do an override which allowed me to use the coupon.

Getting back to the tea, on some of my previous Kenya trips we’ve driven right through the area where many of those huge tea plantations are located, and it’s amazing to see them. I assumed we’d see them this time as well, on the way to Malaba, but I didn’t see any at all. One of my teammates recalled seeing one small tea field; my attention must have been elsewhere.

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