ROAST LEVEL: LIGHT

TASTING NOTES: -BROWN SUGAR-CHERRY-GRAPEFRUIT-

GROWER: Gaia Farm

REGION: Oldeani Village, Karatu District, Tanzania

PROCESS: Fully washed and dried in raised beds

CULTIVAR: Kent, Bourbon, SL-28, Batian, Ruiru-11

ALTITUDE: 1650 - 1800 masl

Gaia Farm is a 620-hectare family-owned estate located in the Karatu district of Tanzania. Gaia is one of two farms managed by Neel and Kavita Vohora, siblings, multi-generation coffee growers, and agricultural entrepreneurs in this extremely unique part of East Africa. Both farms are cultivated along the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater, the largest unbroken caldera in the world and a breathtakingly scenic landscape of escarpments and fertile open range.

Neel and Kavita are third-generation Tanzanians of Indian heritage, and their family has been in the Tanzanian coffee business since the end of the second World War. The family export business based in Arusha has more than 60 years experience in the country. 

Since 1971, the Vohoras have owned about 1000 acres of farmland on the southern exterior slopes of the Ngorongoro caldera near the town of Karatu in Tanzania’s lush rift valley. The farms possess Rainforest Alliance certificate, and the family and their 50+ full-time employees on the farm have done a remarkable job of upkeep and preservation of natural beauty while also running a thriving coffee business. They are diversifying into macadamia and honey, provide temporary housing for harvest labor, and even supply land on the farm for local smallholders to grow beans - a mutually beneficial crop as the legumes fix nitrogen in the soil, a critical step in a healthy cycle of crops.