This is the second year in a row we offer a microlot from the Sambewe Farmers Group, an Agriculture Marketing Cooperative Society (AMCOS) formed by smallholders from the homonymous village of Sambewe, located in the Mbozi district of Songwe region, Southern Highlands of Tanzania, near the border with the neighboring countries Zambia and Malawi. The area is characterized by narrow valleys surrounded by high mountains.

AMCOS are the most common co-ops in Tanzania: they coordinate the processing, transportation, and marketing of members’ coffee by providing a centralized wet mill, called the Central Processing Unit (CPU).

This microlot, isolated by day of processing, consists of cherries from 20 small farmers and has been prepared according to a fully washed process.

The farmers hand-picked only perfectly ripe cherries at an altitude between 1600 and 1800mslm and delivered them to the Sambewe CPU. The first processing step consists of the skin and mucilage removal.

The coffee is fermented in tanks and then washed in water channels, where the beans are further classified by density.

The beans are finally dried on raised beds for 7–10 days. During the drying phase, the beans are continuously turned and covered with clothes during the central hours of the day and night.

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

The Sambewe is very delicate, well balanced and sweet, with deep texture, especially in espresso. The notes are those of plum, cherry, wild berries, brown sugar. Slight hints of dark chocolate are also recognizable when extracted as espresso.

*** Minimum resting period: 7 days for filter from roasting date ***