Coffee Description
This super clean washed Tanzanian coffee has notes of Apricot up front. Balanced and relatively bright lemon-lime acidity in the middle. With a dark chocolate and Black tea finish and lingering apricot notes that stays on your tongue. As this coffee cools, more of the dark chocolate and black tea takes over with balanced notes of stone fruit.
Roast Level from the Roaster
Refers to the roast level in comparison with other coffees from the roaster
Light/Medium
Variety
Kent
Process
Washed
Elevation
1600 masl
Region
Songwe
About Various smallholders, Heyza AMCOS of Tanzania
In Swahili, usawa means balance and kahawa means coffee. The Usawa Kahawa Project is all about gender equality, and was established in 2021 by Taylor Winch, Genuine Origin’s sister company in Tanzania. The project’s goal is to make sure women are involved in farming coffee and bringing it to market. Its two main pillars are 1) empowering gender champions and gender action learning systems and 2) growing coffee production in Tanzania through training women and establishing new farms.
The project works with the Hezya Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Society (AMCOS) in the Mbozi region of Tanzania. AMCOS manage 95% of the country’s coffee production, and smallholders must be registered to an AMCOS to qualify for support in production, processing, storage, transport, marketing, and government aid. Without membership, their raw green coffee would have no way of reaching the global market.
The Hezya AMCOS that produced this lot is made up of nearly 300 smallholders with <1 hectare farms at altitudes ranging from 1590 to 1670masl. Their annual production volume is 64 metric tons, and they mainly focus on growing Bourbon, N39, Kent, and other local varieties.
In addition to agricultural training, the producers who are part of the Usawa Kahawa Project are also trained on the importance of gender equity within the family for coffee production and distribution of finances. Much of the training is led by gender champions who live within the AMCOS communities. Within the Hezya AMCOS, gender champions initiated the Shamba Darasa Model Farm to showcase better agricultural practices and lead by example.
Songwe, Tanzania
The Coffee Ride
To us, community isn’t just proximal. Community is belonging to and supporting something that you believe in, love and want to share with others. Living in this fast paced Amazon world, now more than ever we are needing to slow down and are seeking connection to the products we use daily. Our goal at The Coffee Ride is to sustainably fill that need by sourcing amazing and meaningful coffees that give back to their communities, roast them to perfection, and deliver you the same fresh bean experience to your front door; whether it's locally bicycle delivered here in Boulder or shipped anywhere Nationwide. Basically a coffee that no matter where you make it, is like a warm hug from a loved one in every cup. How it all began: The Coffee Ride all kicked off when our founder Josh began bringing in the coffee he was roasting at home and making a morning Chemex brew for his coffee-centric co-workers to avoid the dreaded bad office coffee. This quickly turned into a morning ritual where more and more people began showing up early to gather, converse, and take a moment to relax before the hectic day began. This community building exercise brought a sense of camaraderie to the workplace and visibly transformed the attitudes of everyone involved. Josh saw how coffee brings people together and gives a sense of unity among people’s diverse qualities and allowed otherwise inhibited conversations to facilitate. It was after realizing the possibility of this transformation for others that Josh took his favorite things; his 20 min bicycle commute to work, nerding out on roasting coffee, creating community, and his nostalgia for his grandfather Jerry the milkman… and The Coffee Ride was born.
