FRIEDHATS - Acacia Hills | Tanzania - Washed - Gesha

When I started writing about this gesha from Tanzania I remembered that one of the guys at the roastery recently took a trip to Tanzania and Kenya. So I asked him what he liked most about the country and he said the people were extremely nice, and it was very green. At that moment I looked outside and saw a lot of grey buildings with just a hint of green between them. I also saw one person trying to give way to the other person but when that person didn’t immediately acknowledged the gesture, this person got angry. And then the other person got angry for him being angry… 

You can see where I’m going with this: nice people and a green environment equals great coffee, while angry people and grey buildings equals…. well, let’s just say there’s no gesha growing in Amsterdam. 

Anyway, this particular coffee comes from the family farms of Acacia Hills, bordering the Ngorongoro Conservation Area. In the early 1900s the Christianakis family moved to Tanzania from Greece to start coffee farming, and in the last decade, Leon Christianakis - the third generation of the family - turned his attention to super high quality varieties.

Acacia Hills has won private auctions in Tanzania with its gesha lots, making Leon one of the forerunners for bringing about higher quality and rare varietals to the country.

Tanzania has an important chapter in the story of gesha. After its discovery in Ethiopia, gesha was taken to the Lyamangu Coffee Research Station in Tanzania; where the plants were successfully cultivated and subsequently distributed throughout Central America. Despite the fact that Tanzania had such an early introduction with gesha, the industry in Tanzania is still in its infancy.

Ok cool, but what does it taste like? This is our second year that we have this coffee and  again it’s been tasting outstanding.  For those who don’t know what to expect from Tanzania, just think of the flavors from Kenya, Rwanda and gesha, combine these flavors and you will have an idea. It’s bright like the Tanzanian sun, it’s very juicy like the lush Tanzanian forest. It’s just very nice, like the Tanzanian people.