About This Coffee
Lituru Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society (AMCOS) built Lituru AMCOS in 2010. The AMCOS is named after Lituru village in Mbinga. Today, 491 farmers deliver their cherry to the station. Lituru is adamant about providing good prices to their members
Harvest & Post-Harvest
Farmers selectively handpick ripe red cherry and deliver it to Lituru AMCOS. Before delivering their coffee to that station, farmers perform rigorous sorting. Lituru provides training to farmers about the importance of selecting only ripe cherry, removing any underripes or extraneous material. Farmers visually sort cherry and then float it to remove floaters. When cherry is delivered, it is of a high quality and ready to be pulped.
Once pulper, coffee is fermented in concrete tanks for 24 to 72 hours. Following fermentation, parchment is washed in clean water and laid on raised beds to dry. Parchments is raked frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 10 to 14 days for parchment to dry.
AA Grade
AA is the largest grade produced in Tanzania, denoting that the bean size is screen 17/18.
Coffee in Tanzania
Coffee’s roots in Tanzania can be traced via oral history back to the Haya tribe of Northwest Tanzania in the 16th century. Following German and then British colonial rule, the Tanzanian coffee industry has undergone many transformations and adjustments in an effort to create the most equal, profitable and high-quality coffee possible. Today, our in-country partner, Sucafina Tanzania, is invested in improving the coffee and the lives of smallholder farmers through a variety of initiatives.
Coffee in Tanzania was grown almost exclusively in the North for a long time. The Kilimanjaro, Arusha, Tarime, Kagera, Kigoma and Karatu/Ngorongoro regions were prized for their ideal Arabica growing conditions. At the time, coffee production was so concentrated in the north that Moshi, a northern municipality, was the only hub for all coffee milling and sales.
Operations in Moshi grew to truly massive proportions in the 1950s and early-1960s. Since both Tanzania, Kenya and Burundi were under British rule in the post-war decades, Moshi was the second milling and sales hub (after Nairobi, Kenya) for British coffee production.
Coffee cultivation has extended southwards in recent years. In addition to the historical powerhouse regions in the north, coffee is now also grown in the southern regions of Ruvuma and Mbeya/Mbozi. Most Southern expansion of coffee growing occurred in the 1970s and 1980s and was encouraged by two projects supported by European backers. In an ironic twist, today 75 to 85% of total coffee production in Tanzania today comes from farms in the south.