Tanzania Peaberry Mimba

Distances in Tanzania are vast – there’s almost 1000 km between coffee producing regions in the North and in the South, same for East and West. The altitudes are up to almost 2000 MASL in many places. 90% of coffee producers are smallholder farmers, owning between 0.5 to 3 hectares, and less than 10% of the coffees are grown at estates. Mbeya/Mbozi and Mbinga (South) in total is close to 50% of production. Similar to Kenya, coffee came with the French missionaries in the late 1800s, and was planted around Kilimanjaro for the most part (there are the Bourbon varieties that are often seen as SLs in Kenya now). In Tanzania, with its Indian influence, the Indian Kent varieties came from Mysore in the 1920s. The Mbeya Region consists of roughly 400,000 smallholder farmers who own, on average, 1,000 trees each. Many practice subsistence farming methods and all their coffee is handpicked. This coffee comes from 70 Producer Groups/small holder farmers. Tweega and Mutwari coffee is composed of both CPU (central pulpery units-fully washed) and HP (home processed) coffee throughout the Southern Highlands from over 10,000 farmers. They are comprised of parchment purchased from 5 districts within Mbeya Region; Cherries are either processed at washing stations or by hand pulpers at the home of the farmer. All suppliers of this coffee diligently adhere to the quality standards of the dry mill. Wet processing and sun drying are performed in the field, followed by parchment delivery and green bean sorting/grading done at the facility in Mbeya.