African
| Process | Washed |
|---|---|
| Variety | Blue Mountain, Bourbon, Kilimanjaro, and Luwiro |
| Elevation | 1200-1900 MASL |
| Country | Tanzania |
| Harvest | South Tanzania: May–September, North Tanzania: July–November |
Cupping Notes: Sweet and tart with herbal, praline, and citrus flavors
These cupping notes are relative to light roast profiles. As the roast profile darkens toward medium to medium/dark, these notes will be slightly eclipsed, resulting in more sweetness and roasted flavor. Once the french roast profile is attained, most of the aforementioned cupping notes will be difficult to detect.
PEABERRIES
Peaberries are a naturally occurring mutation of the coffee seed that forms a single, small, more spherical shaped coffee seed than the typical two “flat beans” that sit face-to-face inside the coffee cherry. While an approximate 5–12 percent of a coffee crop would be expected to naturally develop peaberries, some coffee varieties and origins tend to produce a higher occurrence. Peaberries are normally sorted from every coffee lot in order to maintain a particular coffee's specified screen-size uniformity. From the standpoint of roasting, because of their spherical shape and density, they roast well to all profiles.
HISTORY
With Tanzania being located within the equatorial region of Africa and bordering Kenya the Haya people of this population have naturally had a long history and cultural relationship with coffee. Initially the plants harvested fruit in this region was not cultivated for a coffee beverage, but as a chewed fruit. Coffee (probably Robusta) was grown for this domestic purpose until German colonists essentially mandated that farmers grow the Arabica coffee as a cash crop. This spread the plants’ reach within the country and developed this cultivar's industry around Mount Kilimanjaro.
After Germany’s post world war loss and subsequent control of the colony in 1914 to the British, there were attempts to develop a more efficient and profitable coffee industry similar to the Kenya coffee farming model. Cooperatives of smallholder farmers started to organize in the 1920s to try to improve market access, but it would be several years before the Tanzanian coffees would begin to gain success internationally.
After achieving independence from Britain in 1964, Tanganyika and Zanzibar were combined to establish the Republic of Tanzania—hence the country’s name, Tan/Zania. Growers attempted an aggressive growth campaign in the 1970s, but had difficulty increasing production. During the 1990s Tanzania had shown efforts to reform and privatize coffee exports with hopes that growers could sell on a direct basis. Today, in most of the Western world, Tanzanian coffees are famous primarily as separated peaberry lots.