Tanzania Glanmalure Karibu Espresso
Tanzania Glanmalure Karibu Espresso
Where to start? I am a big Vera fan! Vera is a quietly assured lovely human being. I discovered her coffee during Covid and alongside other Tanzanian producers, of the Ngoro, Ngoro crater who were pushing the envelope of unusual processing and moisture content. Glanmalure was this coffee that (to me) sang a song of terroir. No gimmicks, just great levels of sweetness and fruit.
I finally got to meet Vera this year and she was just as I imagined.
Top Trumps
Farm: Ngila Estate.
Area: Arusha Northern Tanzania
Process: Fully washed (and shade-grown)
Varietal: Kent
Altitude: 1560-1640 Meters above sea level
Roast: Espresso Roast. Not quite as developed as Simply Brazil or Formula 6, but not far behind.
Cup Potential
This was one of the easiest coffees to set up this year. Without slowing anything down tasty shots flowed from the very early 20 seconds…
Shot recipe, 3 days from roast: 17-17.5g of coffee into 35g of espresso 21 seconds and beyond.
9oz Milk-based drink, this is a rich mixture of malt and chocolate.
5-6oz Big Savoury cocoa. You guessed it, a more intense version of the 9.
Espresso recipe: 16-17g of coffee into 45+g of espresso, extracted in 25 secs ish around 93/4C as a rough guide. Always taste it as you are dialing in, you might find something new that you like.
For me, the espresso has a light body, sweet soft acidity (think blackberry) and a linger of brown sugar, cocoa, and citrus. When fresh this is a tiny bit toasty, but that will fade over the next few days. Although completely biased, I am a huge fan.
Farm Stuff
The Ngila Estate is based on the slopes of the Ngorongoro crater and they have been growing coffee for over 100 years. Ngila has a set-aside 80 hectares of preserved rainforest that reaches 1800 meters above sea level. Ngila is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and uses natural insecticides, like Neem extract, and mineral fertilisers.
Glanmalure is the name of a specific area of Ngila and this is a well-developed lot from the main crop that is representative of the farm. Ngila determines the trees that they are going to pick using a Brix meter, picking is selective and sorting is very intensive.
Many of the workforce at Ngila are migrants. For some, it is a break from stone crushing, which is another local manual labour.
Tanzania has a growing population of over 60 million people. The population has grown by a million a year for the last 50 years. Yes, that is a population growth of 5 fold in 50 years.
