ZAMBIA ANAEROBIC NATURAL #1245

Curator's Notes

This coffee is grown high in the Mafinga Hills, an area rich in volcanic minerals and home to Zambia's highest peaks. The unique terroir and airtight fermentation create dazzling notes of cinnamon-sweet strawberry.

Roaster's Notes

You might recognize that this is ALMOST the same coffee as our Natural Zambia, but this one has a fun extra step that makes it unique. Borrowing from wine-makers, this coffee is anaerobically processed, which means that the cherries are sealed in an airtight tank for a period of time before processing. This creates a high activity in the fruit pulp and yeast fermentation, which can create unique aromas and flavors during the roasting process. When we tasted this sample, we got extremely strong strawberry flavor, and we’re excited to offer this as our pride coffee offering. This region, called the Mafinga hills, is nestled between the Democratic Republic of Congo on its North and West, and Tanzania on its East. It has soil that is rich in volcanic minerals, which gives its crops a fullness and unique flavor. The terrain and lack of infrastructure make this area very remote and hard to work in, which is part of why we are so happy to support investment and development of the region, into which our green coffee importer, Olam, has put considerable effort. From Olam: - Olam sponsors a primary and secondary school on Kateshi estate which currently caters for 1,147 students in surrounding villages. - With a distance of over 20 miles to the nearest health post, healthcare for communities near Kateshi estate was frequently out of reach. In response, Olam constructed a health clinic on Kateshi estate which provides free access to basic healthcare for 4,120 members of the community. Staff estimate that an average of 10 lives per month are saved by the presence of the clinic. - The estates are partnered with Water Resource Management Authority and development organisations like GIZ and SNV to reduce water risk and ensure drinking water security in the Chambeshi catchment area. - In a concerted effort to empower local women, Kateshi is the first and only coffee estate to employ women in traditionally male-dominated roles such as tractor driving and large equipment operation. - Unsustainable forest use in the region has led to soil erosion, land degradation and the drying out of the Lukupa river in 2016. Olam have launched an afforestation which offers sustainably produced firewood to locals in an effort to protect and restore native ecosystems This coffee is double hand picked to ensure the highest quality cherries are picked at their ripest point. They are dried on raised African beds for 18-24 days under shade nets, used to ensure an even drying process. Once the optimum moisture content has been reached the coffee is rested in a cool environment before being milled, graded by bean size and sorted to remove any remaining defects.