Summary

Excellent as espresso or filter, Ilomba is a fine coffee in the mouth and with high complexity, with notes of peach and plum, lemon flower and chamomile, grapefruit, and sweet as toffee.

The Finer Details

The Origin

This micro-lot comes from the village of Ilomba, in the district of Mbozi, on the steep hills of the Mbeya highland region, not far from Zambia. The highlands of this region have been delivering increasingly high-quality coffee in recent years.

The Producer

More specifically, the micro-lot comes from the Ilomba Factory, a washing station located in the village of Ilomba. The washing station is a voluntary organization of small producers aimed at improving the production and marketing of coffee, currently composed of 24 members. This station has been able, over the years, to produce exceptional coffees.

The factory was founded and funded at the beginning of 2000 by Technoserve, an American non-governmental company that supported the creation of the best Ethiopian washing stations. The end of the Technoserve project in 2010 led to rapid changes in the station, until the establishment of an independent co-op that reinvested most of the profits into the improvement of the production process. This approach led, for example, to the acquisition of a modern Penagos Ecopulper.

The Process

The coffee grown in this area of ​​Tanzania is Kent, a mutation of the Typica cultivar. The coffees are cultivated at about 1900m above sea level and, due to the high altitude, the harvest is performed at a later time than the surrounding areas, between July and August.

The cherries are delivered by the 24 co-op members, who collect them by hand only when they are ripe. Upon delivery, a first manual selection is made, to exclude any unripe or overripe cherries, which are withdrawn by the members for domestic consumption.

The first step of the processing consists in mechanically removing skin and mucilage from the cherries, with an eco-pulper. The parchment is then fermented in special tanks for about 12 hours, then washed and sorted by density into appropriate channels before being dried on raised beds for about 20 days.

During the drying process, the parchment is further selected to remove any residual defects. The beans are continuously turned and covered with sheets during the central parts of the day.

Once the parchment has been mechanically removed from the beans, these are packed in small Grainpro bags, which are in turn inserted into jute bags, and as such have been sent to the Nero Scuro laboratory.

In the Cup

We have developed two toasting profiles for this Tanzania: for filter and espresso, given that we consider this coffee, like many Tanzania, excellent in both extractions.

Ilomba is a soft coffee in the mouth and with high complexity, with notes of peach and plum, lemon flowers and chamomile, grapefruit, and sweet as a toffee.