Lime, Marzipan, Nectarine
Producer: Kateshi Estate
Origin: Northern Province
Process: Anaerobic Natural
Elevation: 1400 masl
Varietal: Castillo, Catimor 129
Kateshi coffee estate, as one of the first coffee estates in Zambia, was established in 1972 close to Kateshi village. Back then, its wet processing facilities represented the heart of coffee production in northern Zambia having been the central mill for all coffee produced in the region. It is also award-winning; its natural and honey placing both 1st and 2nd in Zambia's annual Taste of Harvest competition.
Local Community is at the heart of the estate's vision. Olam provides daily access to safe drinking water to over 20,000 locals and supports 3 schools that provide 1,500+ students with primary and secondary education. Also on site is our health clinic, the only such facility for 30km. Complete with a pharmacy and delivery room, the clinic provides free basic healthcare to over 4,000 community members and sees an average of 95 visitors per day.
Kateshi has been recognized for boldly challenging gender stereotypes in Zambia, being the first and only coffee estate to employ women for traditionally male-dominated roles such as driving tractors, bull-dozers and road graders. Oh, and we also sponsor a football team, the Kateshi Coffee Bullets who compete in the Zambian 1st Division.
The Process
The best cherries are carefully selected with double handpicking (ensuring a consistency of over 98% of fully formed red ripe cherries), followed by floatation to remove low-density cherries. These cherries are then fermented in sealed tanks for 24 hours before being dried on raised beds. The cherries are spread across the beds in thin layers (2 cherries deep) to ensure even drying, and regularly turned over a period of 3 to 4 weeks.
The Region
Long before Dr. Livingston arrived to name Victoria Falls after the queen, the people who had lived around this wonder of the natural world for generations had already named it more appropriately, “the smoke that thunders.” The falls thunder into the Zambesi River, which flows east toward Mozambique. But before the river crosses the border, take a left and head north up the Luangwa River. You’ll move through land rich in biodiversity, including the world’s largest concentration of hippos. As the river meanders and the altitude rises you will eventually arrive at the source of the Luangwa, 1500 meters up the Mafinga plateau, which is also, as it happens, the home of Olam’s 5 coffee estates.
The Northern Province of Zambia shares its borders with Tanzania to the East and D.R. Congo to the North. It also occupies the southern shore of Lake Tanganyika - the world’s longest fresh-water lake, the largest in Africa by volume and also its deepest. The Northern Province has the best conditions for arabica coffee cultivation in Zambia with its relative proximity to the equator and abundant altitude (Mafinga Hills being the highest point in the country at 2,300 masl).
The local economy is dominated by agriculture with coffee being the primary commercial crop, alongside subsistence crops such as maize, millet, groundnuts and beans. The mountainous terrain and lack of transport infrastructure makes this region challenging to work in, but also one most in need of the investment and development which the coffee industry can bring.
