Tanzania Ngila Estate Espresso
Tanzania Ngila Estate
When you buy coffee from a country, what do you look for? Most of us build a picture of what a good example is, and there will always be our own slight bias. These could be price, process or roast-based, for starters. Vera’s coffees are some of the best in the Ngoro Ngoro region and Tanzania as a whole, too. Tanzania Ngila Estate has been a regular in our line-up over the last 5-6 years. Vera is the best and most reliable producer we have bought from in Tanzania.
You may notice that we have Tanzania Ngila Estate much earlier than in previous seasons. For a combination of reasons, it took (practically) a year to receive the coffee after the harvest in 2024. Selling the new harvest was going to be harder. Cutting a long story short, we connected Vera with our friends at Omwani, and a new future distribution channel is in place for these fantastic coffees. If you like to buy coffee from lots of roasters, please look out for others selling Ngila Estate, as we can’t buy it all.
When you have a clean coffee like the fully washed Kent, my first idea is to brew it as filter coffee.
Top Trumps
Farm: Ngila Estate.
Area: Arusha, Northern Tanzania
Process: Fully Washed (and shade-grown)
Varietal: Kent
Screen Size: AA (Also known as big and consistent)
Altitude: 1560-1640 Meters above sea level
Roast: Medium/light filter.
(Filter) Cup potential:🥣
Milk-Based 9 oz: Honeycomb, candyfloss sugars.
Milk-based 6oz: Honeycomb, dark chocolate, black tea, white grape.
Espresso: Juicy, vibrant, white winey acidity, super clean.
We found lots more sweetness brewed cooler! 94c was the best extraction in both in and out of milk drinks. This means it should be fairly easy to set up.
Standard recipe was/ is…
17g of coffee into 34-36g of espresso in 24-30 seconds for milk-based drinks
17 g+ \- into 40-50g of espresso for delicious, clean shots.
Farm Info
The Ngila Estate is based on the slopes of the Ngorongoro crater, founded by German settler Mr. Quellhorst. With over 100 years of growing coffee, Ngila has a set-aside of preserved rain forest that reaches 1800 meters above sea level. Ngila is certified by the Rainforest Alliance and uses natural insecticides, like Neem extract, and mineral fertilisers. Ngila determines the trees that they are going to pick using a Brix meter; picking is selective, and sorting is very intensive.
In 1992, the estate was acquired by the Meyer family, and currently it is owned by Vera Stücker. The estate spans 100 hectares and maintains approximately 150,000 coffee trees, while also emphasising environmental practices via initiatives such as planting 4,000 indigenous trees annually to combat soil erosion, or reforesting lands along the Ngila River to promote ecosystem health.
Share your brews with us?