Learn about coffee farming and coffee farmers!
Kilimanjaro produces coffee! A Kili-slope coffee farmer will teach you everything you need to know about coffee farming in a half-day expedition. From planting the seedling to brewing the perfect cup of coffee, you'll be guided. A local farmer will show you the entire coffee-making process.
The grower will also discuss organic coffee and fair trade. The trip includes a cooked lunch and coffee.
A Dutch sustainable tourism development initiative created the trip to help small-scale coffee growers generate money and become less dependent on coffee market prices and crop seasons.
Kilimanjaro coffee is famous for its low acidity and great quality. Tanzania's main "cash crop" is Kilimanjaro coffee. Kilimanjaro's coffee centre is Moshi. Coffee beans are cultivated, picked, dried, removed from undesired ingredients, and bagged on the plantation you visit. You can do everything.
Tanzania Coffee
Kilimanjaro's "Chagga AA" coffee beans, named after the local tribe, are excellent. Chagga AA Arabica pearl beans have less acid than Kenyan coffee beans and have a full-bodied taste and scent. High-quality coffee demands expertise and care. Arabica plants are susceptible to wind, heat, and cold and require permeable soils that can hold a lot of water. Coffee is usually grown in shaded forests or with other crops. Due to their big leaves, banana plants can shade coffee trees.
Coffee trees produce the most after 15 years and can last 25-40 years. Each tree produces half a kilo of raw coffee per harvest, requiring exceptional coffee cherries. Because coffee cherries on one branch are usually at different ripening stages, harvesting is always done manually. Handpick dark red juicy berries. The harvester checks and harvests the same trees every 8-10 days.
The pulp, "silver skin," and parchment, which protect the coffee bean in the coffee cherry, must be removed after harvest for further processing.
"Dry process" is used in Tanzania. Coffee cherries are sun-dried in huge, flat containers and then shattered by a machine when the bean "rattles" inside. Centrifuges separate the bean from undesirable bits. Sacks of raw coffee are auctioned.
During harvesting season, Moshi holds a massive weekly auction of raw coffee beans. Even while coffee demand is constant, the world market price for raw coffee beans, which makes up about 10% of the final price for edible coffee, fluctuates. This endangers small-scale coffee farmers. "Fair trade" coffee offers farmers a guaranteed purchasing price and quantity regardless of global coffee bean prices.
Only consumer nations like the US, Germany, and Italy roast and process coffee. Roasting requires practice. The beans are drum-roasted over a gas flame. The roaster determines bean roasting by color, smoke, and scent. Each coffee delivery must be roasted independently because each strain and harvest behaves differently when roasted. After roasting, hot beans are sieved for minute particles and chilled fast.
Planting occurs in October and March, and harvesting in February and June. December blooms and February green beans. These two months require various plant care steps.
This tour will take 2-3 hours.
