Climpson & Sons - Single Origin: Ilomba #19, Tanzania

Flavours of Blackberry, Plum, Ceylon Tea.

Brewing - A velvety and almost tea like coffee. The Ilomba has a complex and dynamic flavour profile which we love as a filter method like V60 or Aeropress.

Ilomba Factory is a washing station located in Ilomba Village, Mbozi district, on steep sloping hills of South Western highlands in a region called Mbeya. Coffee from this region makes up 20% of the total production from Tanzania. In Tanzania, there are about 500,000 coffee farmers and about 2 million people involved in the coffee industry. 90% of the producers are smallholders with between 0.5 – 3 hectare of land.

Ilomba Factory is a voluntary organization of smallholder coffee farmers aimed at joining forces to improve coffee production and marketing for this region.

The group was formed under Kilicafe and Technoserve in the 2000s. After years working under the patronage of Techniserve, the group managed to produce 40 metric tonnes of coffee in 2012. Unfortunately that same year, Technoserve ended the program to support the farmer groups and production fell to only 4 metric tonnes the following year. This was mainly due to lack of operating capital as the group could not be trusted by financiers after the departure of Technoserve. In 2013, the Ilomba Factory entered into a new business relationship, which assisted with renovations in the washing station as well as providing inputs on their agricultural practices. After the recovery in 2014/15 season the group produced more than 20 metric tonnes of coffee.

Currently, the group has 24 small holder member farmers. They also provide benefits to other farmers who are not members of the group through the use of the group’s facilities to improve the quality of the coffee for their neighbors produce. The group expects growth in both farmer membership number and increased quality coffee tonnage.

The coffee cherries are delivered from the 24 smallholder farmers, who pick and deliver their cherries to the washing station. When they deliver the cherries, they will hand sort to ensure only the ripe cherries are processed.

The unripe and over-ripe cherries will be taken back home by the farmers for home processing and will be sold locally or consumed by the farmers themselves.