Acacia Hills
TANZANIA
In 2007, Leon and Aideen Christianakis teamed up with a Portland roaster, Mark Stell to purchase a coffee estate and to focus solely on specialty coffee production. This is Acacia Hills. Our featured micro-lot from Leon and Aideen is a honey-processed Gesha varietal, grown at the highest elevation of the estate, about 1900 metres above sea level.
While Tanzania might be less recognized in terms of quality coffee production than its neighbouring Kenya or Rwanda, the crop of recent years has shown a huge leap forward. Extremely complex coffees with delicious fruity notes keep popping up from the country, which is the fourth largest coffee producer in Africa. Around 95% of the annual production of 30 to 40 thousand tons comes from the 4,5 million independent smallholders of the country, with the remaining 5% coming from plantations owned by either the government or private corporations. The main production regions up north are located at the feet of the Kilimanjaro and Meru mountains, while in the south they are at the high plains of Ruvuma and Mbeya, 1000-2500 metres above sea level. The most commonly used arabica varietals in the country are Bourbon, Kent, SL28 and Catimor, which are wet-processed most of the times.