Tanzania Peaberry Shinzingo is Exceptional
The Tanzania Peaberry Shinzingo is exceptional. A customer graciously left a review saying, “The Tanzania Shinzingo Peaberry is an incredibly rich but smooth coffee with layers of flavor. Better than advertised.” We agree and couldn’t have said it better!
We love the flavors that were coaxed out of the Shinzingo in the roasting process. We detected sun-ripened blackberry, brown sugar, and white pepper in this new crop of tasty Tanzania.
It is medium-bodied with moderate acidity and those lovely lip-smacking fruit notes similar to other African varieties. We noticed this coffee shines in all drip methods with manual pour-over being our favorite.
The Tanzania green beans were purchased through Atlas Imports which is in its second year purchasing from the Shinzingo Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies (AMCOS) in the Mbeya region.
The Mbeya Region
A bit about Mbeya, it is one of the largest coffee producing regions in Tanzania which is also known to produce some of the best quality coffee from smallholder (small coffee farmers) production.
The region produces 35-40% of the country’s total Arabica coffee production. Tanzania produces 30,000-40,000 metric tons of coffee a year. Smallholders are responsible for 90% of that production.
The conditions in Mbeya are as follows: elevation between 1200-1800 feet, the rainy season is between November to January, and the main coffee varieties grown are Kent and Typica.
Why Peaberry?
The peaberry is prized here in the US and in Japan. They are sorted from other bean sizes much like the sorting process in Kenya, and you end up with a very tidy and consistent collection of cute, little, football-shaped beans.
Peaberry is also a very flavorful bean since it is a single bean forming within the cherry instead of the twins that more commonly grow at the center of the fruit. The single bean absorbs all the flavor usually shared with the two inner seeds making it pack a punch of flavor.
Conditions in Tanzania
Farmers faced many challenges and difficulties over the years including location, access to information, coffee diseases (Wilt being the largest setback in the 90’s that still affects plants today), and facilities to pulp and wash the coffee cherries they produce. It’s wonderful to see conditions change, making the livelihood of coffee farmers more sustainable and the future of coffee production in Tanzania brighter.
Recently, Tanzania has made efforts to allow farms to sell directly to international buyers. The country has also worked to support the farms with access to seedlings to replace aging plants, by making lending easier so farms have access to additional production needs like fertilizers, and by disseminating information and technology.
The country’s strategy implementation helps increase coffee production for the entire country including the multitudes of smallholders who comprise the majority of those producing coffee in Tanzania.
We are excited to be able to offer the Tanzania Peaberry Shinzingo and support conditions in Tanzania. This coffee is available at our shop, here.
Where we gathered the information for this article from these sources: