Sambewe AMCOS • Washed-Processed Bourbon & Heirloom from Mbozi

Recommended Roast Level

Full City (Medium)

Tasting Notes

Cacao Nibs - This coffee has a distinctly earthy undertone throughout the cup, which on top of a general taste of the terroir leads us to put cacao in the primary description.

Hojicha - a toasted nuttiness is particularly distinct within this cup. This is a very high-clarity note, with this coffee tasting very much like hojicha.

Strawberry - Very light malic acidities sit in the back of the palate for this cup as well as a nice, smooth sweetness to round it off. Strawberries understated flavor with pleasant sweetness had us landing on this note.

Sambewe AMCOS Coffee Production

Sambewe AMCOS represents more than 440 smallholder farmers, all of whom live in or around the villages of Sambewe, Itumpi, Nansama, Iyenga, and Ileya in the Mbozi district of Tanzania. This AMCOS is the result of four local farmers groups combining forces in 2018; the producers all share a central processing unite and deliver their coffee in cherry form.

Microlots from Tanzania are traceable to the washing station level and are selected basis their cup quality. Due to the small average farm size, many producers (especially in the South) are members of AMCOS, Agricultural Marketing Cooperative Societies, which share centralized cherry delivery and processing stations. The coffees at these receiving points are blended together and sorted before being separated by quality, and microlot selections represent the highest-scoring lots differentiated from the larger day lots.

This AMCOS has three specific goals for the future: to build a new central processing unit, to renovate the office building and warehouse, and to plant local trees to create shade and biodiversity.

Highlights