Uganda - Zebigi | Washed | SL14, SL28 & Nyasaland

The Coffee Gardens have been working with the farmers who produced this microlot for the past five years. They know each and every farming family who live on the mountainside about 600 metres above the washing station. This microlot is named after the village Zebigi, where many of the farmers live. Last year Coffee Gardens trained these farmers on growing coffee amongst shade trees, good agricultural practices, and of course, better harvesting techniques. In July 2022, Coffee Gardens distributed over 8,300 shade, fruit and fast growing tree seedlings. This year, training is continuing and TCG are building toilet blocks for the three primary schools in the area.

Farmers who contribute to this microlot have coffee gardens of different sizes and so supply different amounts of coffee. Mr Woniala Moses from Zebigi was one of the biggest contributors to this microlot, supplying 349kg of red, ripe coffee cherries. Within hours of being picked, coffee cherries are carried down to the station in 50kg bags by “runners” - a team of over 160 women and men employed from the local community. This coffee is pulped before undergoing a signature fermentation method involving a pre-wash, a long soak in cold mountain spring water, followed by a gentle long fermentation lasting forty hours before a final wash. This coffee is then meticulously sorted at 12 different stages before export.