AMKENI COLLECTIVE

Following the great success of this coffee last year, we decided to contract more of it for this year. We fell in love with the deep, fruity caramel flavours of the coffee

The group of Amkeni is a collection of 150 farmers working on the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro composed primarily of older men, which is a significant problem in the region. As coffee growing is not seen as being a sustainable project in this area due to a lack of youth participation and lack of lucrative rewards. Celebration of these fantastic projects and coffees is incredibly important to us and paying a fair price for these coffees reaffirms that coffee production can be an economically sustainable career.

About Wanza

Wanza officially formed in 2017, following the Tanzanian legislation giving export licenses to producers, by Rebecca Trupin, This Side Up and Frank Mlay, with a key aim of the project to give access initially to the Aranga group access to a differentiated market. Since then Wanza has started working with four more groups: Masista, Marangu, KiliMeru and of course Amkeni. Each of these groups have their own rich heritage but share one key objective – selling their coffee for a greater renumeration.

The farmers faced many issues which Wanza and ThisSideUp are aiming to break down, climate change, ageing farmers, quality issues, lack of market access and lack of funds. Recently we had the chance to talk to Frank over dinner about these issues. Frank Mlay is a very impressive individual who helps these groups confronting these problems. One of the key points he spoke to me about was about a lack of young people working on the farms in Tanzania as they do not see coffee production as a viable future career so they move to the city to obtain different jobs. He made a few jokes about last year and farmers finally earning well because of higher C-price, but it seems that the issue is very real, production in Tanzania does not provide stable enough renumeration to continue production especially as input costs rise as well as costs of living and climate change diminishing returns.

Frank and the team at Wanza are ensuring that the quality of production in these groups continues to increase as well as helping with a more productive harvest. The group has been investing heavily into empowering women to take up coffee productoon in Tanzania, as well as encouraging enthusiasm in younger populations to take up coffee production, providing a program called „back to school“ to teach about each aspect of farming and production.

Rebecca has been working to promote these groups (not under Wanza) since 2012, she mentions difficulties selling due to quality concerns in the specialty market. However, from where we stand that is hard to believe because everything we have tasted from Wanza has been truly exceptional with Amkeni really standing out as one of our favourite coffees of 2025, although we have only tried their coffee last year.

About the processing: Cherries are brought to a central pulper where they are depulped, soaked over night and floated using raised channels and set out to dry on raised beds. The group runs a central washing station equipped with both depulper and drying beds.

About the Roast: This coffee we always want to emphasise that deep, fruity characteristic whilst maintaining the bright character of the coffee. We roasted this coffee fast, and very light as it naturally has that deep caramel flavour. Roast Level:  Light (100 Agtron)

About the coffee: 
Region: Nkoaranga, Arumeru District, Arusha Region, Tanzania.
Altitude: 1,800 MASL
Importer: ThisSideUp
Exporter: Wanza & ThisSideUp
Harvest: February 2026
Farmgate price: Work in Progress
FOB Price: Work in Progress

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