In northern Tanzania Mount Kilimanjaro reigns supreme. This extinct stratovolcano is the African continent’s highest peak (16,000 ft base to summit) as well as the source of a majority of Tanzania’s high quality arabica coffee, having been produced here since the late 1800s. Our new Tanzania Peaberry Microlot from the Kibosho Coop is produced on Kilimanjaro’s southern slopes where the volcanic, mineral rich soil provides an excellent base for this coffee that is grown under a natural canopy of banana trees. This Tanzania Peaberry Microlot is a collection of washed and sun-dried Bourbon and Kent varieties that cups quite nicely with notes of spicy brown sugar, tea, tropical fruits and caramel.
What Else We Have To Offer
We also have available our washed & sun-dried Tanzania Peaberry Northern Select +. To view a full listing of our coffees please visit our coffee offerings page.
The Kibosho Cooperative
Tanzania borders a few of the great East African coffee producers, namely Burundi, Kenya, Malawi, Rwanda and Uganda. The Kibosho Cooperative is located in the Moshi district, just south of Kilimanjaro’s peak and near Tanzania’s northeastern border with Kenya. Kibosho Mwekasungu heads operations and leads the coop’s membership in cultivation and processing (wet), which is achieved using locally-made, hand-driven pulping machines. Interesting to note, the fermentation of this Tanzania Peaberry Microlot is done on a very small scale using buckets in a similar fashion to those frequently used by farmers in rural Sumatra. The coffee beans are then sun dried on patios and/or mats and sorted before the dried parchment is delivered to a central collection point and stored in sisal bags prior to its delivery to the local dry mill. Once milled and graded, it is put up for auction via the Tanzania Coffee Board. In the final stage, the lot is transported over 300 miles south to the Eastern port of Dar Es Salaam for final processing and export.
Coffee Production In Tanzania
Cooperative growing is the norm in Tanzania with independent, small farms accounting for approximately 90% of the annual production. Practically all of Tanzania’s exported coffee is of the washed type, and although there is a small contingent of robusta grown at lower altitudes, the vast majority is arabica. German colonists were responsible the introduction of arabica in the late 1800s along with an array of laws that mandated its cultivation. However the northwestern region’s Haya tribe are historically the only people in possession of a documented, pre-German use of coffee believed to have arrived from Ethiopia via Kenya.
Read More
For more on our Tanzania Peaberry Microlot including full origin details, please visit it’s profile page here: Tanzania Kibosho Peaberry Microlot.
To view a full listing of our coffees please visit our coffee offerings page. Call us anytime M-F, 8AM – 4:30PM PST to speak to our friendly staff for more details: 800.761.JAVA
