Description
- Origin: Tanzania
- Region: Kilimanjaro
- Town: Mwika
- Washing Station: Amkeni
- Farmer: 60 smallholders
- Crop: 2024
- Altitude: 1600-1750m
- Variety: Bourbon, Jackson Bourbon
- Processing: Washed
A note from our supplier, This Side Up:
The story starts with Rebecca Trupin, half Tanzanian, half American meeting the Aranga coffee group in 2012. She was looking to learn more about successful coffee cooperatives in the neighborhood to help the farmers from her mother’s village in Marangu. The Aranga were ready and willing to support this proposition of supporting their neighbours. Whilst this was happening, Rebecca also understood that Aranga was looking for buyers. So she was looking for a market that was interested in Tanzanian coffee. Then, she met Lennart in the US and they were interested to give this a go. Although it was not a easy project since it entailed a lot of quality issues, with a help of few loyal roasters such as Kikundi, Usawa, the Aranga project had begun in 2015.Seeing this success of Aranga, the Marangus (the farmers from Rebecca’s mother’s village) were also keen to export their coffee internationally. These aspirations were sadly not aligned with their reality of having a high quality product. Coupled with a non transparent leadership, there were several things that needed attention before the coffees could be officially exported.
Coffee until then was being exported under the Aranga group since they had an official license so Rebecca was primarily being the link between farmers and This Side Up for communication and coordination. Now, this partnership with Frank, led Rebecca and Frank to find Wanza and make things official in 2017. Once they had registered their exporting btyouusiness, they were met with more farmer groups such as Amkeni and Masista through friends and family to export their coffees. Each group came with a distinct story yet their common desire was to sell their coffees world wide for a fair remuneration.This became the most important purpose for Wanza to be in the game.
Farmer groups face several hurdles including climate change, no youth , quality issues, access to market, insufficient remuneration etc. With full awareness of all this, Wanza strives to translate the efforts put in by these farmers for producing specialty coffee into good prices as well as long lasting relationships. This economic impact they have been creating currently in cooperation with This Side Up has fostered a culture of trust, transparency actively also between Wanza and their farmer partners, making Wanza’s evolution into the a Tanzanian coffee scene a pivotal one.
In 1999, in Mwika, a small village on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro, 150 farmers harvested and processed their own coffee at home and then brought the parchment to the group headquarters. In 2001, with the help of Technoserve’s capital, they built the first Central processing unit. Started with 69 members, now the group remains with 45 of them who have a special status of a “coffee group” instead of a cooperative which is the expected norm in Tanzania. Other than climate change, the lack of youth participation questions the long term sustainbility of coffee production in this region. Despite this, the older farmers still continue to experiment in different ways including using cattle for both manure as well source of fuel for cooking among other things which keeps the group fairly active and competent.
Wanza was trying to get them on board but it was never in the cards until Frank directly was in contact with the chairman learning about their victory streak at the quality championship. Frank realized that despite winning quality championships, they were not getting paid enough nor higher than their peers for all of their efforts. They were forced into a corner running out of options of a fair compensation. It was either selling it via the auction or letting the quality deteroirate. Now with Wanza by their side there came access to This Side Up and the international market. With fair compensation for their coffees, the group continues to build dreams for the future, such as upgrading their CPU, to renovate their office and equipment as well as opening a fund for members to help them afford agricultural inputs.
Our coffee comes in craft paper bags which contain a plastic liner on the inside to guarantee freshness of our coffee. Please dispose properly at your local plastic trash container. The Village Coffee is roasted fresh every week, and best consumed within four weeks after roast date. Store your coffee in a dry, dark and cool place, avoid the fridge.