Utengule Coffee
Plantation on a mission to bring quality coffee to the Tanzania market The Utengule plantation produces coffee that is as unforgettable as its views it affords of the cascading valleys of the Rift Valley. Mark Edwards finds out how its premium quality range of products are stirring the interests of discerning Tanzanian coffee drinkers.
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n 1919, it wasn’t just Christianity that missionaries brought to the villages on the slopes of the mighty Mbeya mountain range in Southern Tanzania. They were also carrying with them plenty of bourbon coffee beans. These they planted on land in Utengule donated to them by the village chief. It became apparent the coffee coming from those first bourbon trees was of exceptional quality and the planting area was rapidly expanded. The missionaries soon passed on ownership of the land, but coffee production continued to grow. The Utengule Coffee Estate, which has been run by Swiss coffee expert Hans Fässler and his family since 1987, is now known by gourmet coffee lovers far and wide and this year is marking its 100th anniversary, a century on from the planting of those first coffee beans.
There are still a few small plots with trees from the missionaries’ original planting, but in recent years a renovation programme has replaced those old plants with younger material. That the soil here is still producing a high yield of quality coffee after one hundred years is due in part to a sensitive cultivation system.
Perfect conditions The estate may be 1,400 metres above sea level, but the fields are located in flat areas only and soil is protected by the spreading crowns of Albizzia and Grevillea shrubs that help to reduce soil temperatures and provide organic litter, such as leaves and twigs. Agro-chemicals are the last resort here. The perfect conditions for growing coffee here actually go back much further than one hundred
Around 40 per cent of the estate’s 740 acres has been left as a nature reserve
years. The mineral rich soil originates from volcanic eruptions millennia ago that formed the surrounding Rift Valley and Mbeya ranges. This mountainous terrain has the ideal climate of warm summers, fresh winters and seasonal rains and the streams that run down from its peaks and cross the estate provide cool, clean water to irrigate the coffee fields and to wash coffee during the harvest. The altitude and good cultivation system combine to turn out the estate’s slow maturing, high-density beans that produce a cup of coffee of smooth flavour, full body and fine acidity. These qualities have brought Utengule Coffee success in Europe, where part of the plantation’s production is exported, but a growing amount is roasted locally – at the estate’s own modern facility in Dar es Salaam – and supplied to cafés
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