Imagine a large area of 280 hectars, with green bushes and small red cherries on them. You are looking at the Munali Coffee Farm, just a bit more than 1 hour outside of Lusaka, going south past Kafue into Munali Hills. The name Munali actually comes from David Livingstone, who was a red head (“munali” apparently means “red head” in the local language).
We were 7 of us from the Swedish School who went for a guided tour to the farm in late May. We wanted to see how coffee is produced and have a taste of this Zambian coffee, of which 95% is exported to Europe, Japan and America. The tour took about 2 hours and we got to see the plantation, the factory and also the human made dam, which was created in 1985 by the dutch owner Willem Lublinkhof, and now supports the plantation with water. After the tour we did some coffee tasting and could also buy coffee. Included in the tour price of USD 20, was also a bag of coffee.
At Munali they produce the Arabica coffee (mainly Kenya based SL28 that are typical of medium to sharp acidity and medium body in its taste), which is said to have better quality than the Robusta coffee.
Coffee is produced in many steps, and the best way to find out how, is to actually visit the farm and have the experts explain it to you. During harvesting each tree is being picked around 5 times, starting in May and ending in September. This is also the best time to go to the farm for a visit, since then you will see how it is done. After the coffee berries are picked they get wet processed; first coffee is pulped (skin comes out) and then fermented and dried. After drying coffee (this stage is called parchment) it will rest 6 to 8 weeks and after that follows the dry processing, where dry husk and silver skin is removed and coffee is graded according to the size and quality. After this the coffee will get roasted and cupped by professional coffee tasters.
The farm has 300 permanent employees, but during harvesting they go up to 1500 pickers, since every single bean is hand picked. A good picker is able to pick 200 kg a day. Each year approx 500 tons of coffee beans are picked at the farm. The farm is not only a farm, but also almost like a village, due to all the staff and families living in the surroundings, working at the farm. There is a clinic, a school, and they also organize social activities such as bicycling and soccer games.
If you want to visit the farm and go on a similar tour as we did, go on to their website www.munalicoffee.com to get all their contact details. There you can also read more about the history of the farm and the advantages for growing coffee in this particular place.
For the interested one who wants to learn more about coffee, you can also visit www.kaffeinformation.se (only in Swedish) or http://www.ineedcoffee.com/ (in English).
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