About This Coffee
Utengule Estate is named for the nearby village of the same name. It was started by missionaries in 1919 and acquired by the current owner, Hans Faessler in 1986. Today, the fertile soil, warm summers and strong seasonal rains ensure optimal conditions for cultivating high quality coffee. Utengule sits near the border with Zambia and Malawi.
Cultivation
Utengule sits at the perfect position for coffee cultivation. The soil is fertile and rich and nourished coffee trees. Clear mountain water trickles down from the Mbeya mountain range and is used to irrigate the farm.
Utengule has an on-farm nursery to grow new seedlings to enable them to continuously renovated aging rootstock. Approximately 100 hectares of the farm are protected nature reserve where local flora and fauna can flourish.
The estate is dedicated to creating a system where nothing is wasted and everything contributes to better coffee. Pulp from processing is recycled in compost and wood from pruning is converted in biochar that it mixed with compost to make soil more fertile. Wastewater from processing is used to irrigate coffee trees.
Harvest & Post-Harvest
During the harvest season, up to 400 people are employees to selectively handpick ripe, red cherry on the farm. Additional workers will visually hand sort picked cherry to ensure no underripe or damaged cherry remains. Once sorted, cherry is pulped on a Bendig ecopulper, which minimizes water use while sorting cherry to remove floaters for separate processing.
Coffee flows into a tiled tank where is ferments in water for approximately 12 hours. Following fermentation, parchment is washed in clean water and laid on raised beds to sun dry. Workers rakes parchment frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 7 days for parchment to dry.
AB
Coffee in Tanzania is graded according to size. AB beans are those that are between 15 and 18 meaning that beans are between 6 and 7 millimeters in size.
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.