Tanzania Acacia Hills Kent AB

Let's go through some history together:

The Haya tribe in Northwest Tanzania reportedly brought coffee back from Abyssinia (modern day Ethiopia) in the 16th century. This “Haya coffee”, or amwani, was a Robusta variety. Early Tanzanians prepared amwani by boiling unripe cherries with herbs and then smoking the mixture for several days. The resulting cherry mixture could be chewed whole. The role of coffee in Haya culture was more for cultural functions than daily consumption. Amwani was included in formal greetings, tributes to royals and religious rituals. Coffee use was so carefully restricted that, in order to grow coffee, people needed authorization from the royals. This strict control on coffee growing also increased its value and status by restricting supply and making coffee rarer.

When Germany took control of East Africa in the late 19th century, the colonial government quickly instituted laws that spread coffee planting throughout the region. These laws were intended to force the Haya to enter the cash economy and, in turn, become less independent and more governable. When coffee became ubiquitous, the Haya lost the wealth that came with having a monopoly. These laws also meant that the Germans could export the high-value, high-demand coffee for generous profits.

Similar to Rwanda, Tanzania has only recently become recognized for its specialty coffees. With increasingly better infrastructure, access to washing stations and farmer organization, Tanzania is now consistently producing high-quality specialty-grade coffees.

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.

Even though transportation from the few farms in Southern Tanzania to Moshi could take nearly a week, there just wasn’t enough production to make it economical for the government or private companies to construct mills in the South until the 1970s and 1980s.

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.

The producer's, Leon Christianakis, story embodies the history of coffee production in northern Tanzania itself, and it also vividly reflects the future of specialty coffee in the East African country. Leon is the third generation of coffee producers in his family. The family’s house is located on the outskirts of Arusha, near the Kilimanjaro International Airport. His grandparents were also immigrants who came to Tanzania from Greece around the early 1900s and made a living from coffee production.

The farm, Acacia Hills, was listed as the winner of a private auction in Tanzania organized by ACE (The Alliance for Coffee Excellence). 

Kent was introduced to Tanzania and elsewhere in East Africa in the 1920s as part of an intensive selection program at the Lyamungu Research Station in Tanzania, focused on quality and production.

The AB grade in the name stands for the coffee grade which is given by the size of the beans - between 15 and 18 screen size meaning that beans are measuring 6 and 7 millimeters in size.