The top speciality estate coffee in the Malawi Taste of Harvest Competition held in September 2005, and October 2008 under the auspices of the East African Fine Coffee’s Association. Our Coffee’s are; well balanced, floral, sweet and delicate.

Satemwa produces a mild washed Arabica coffee in the style of the East African Arabica’s. 

It differs from the East African’s however in that it has a lower acidity in the cup, thereby giving a more balanced cup, a ‘self drinker’ suitable for drinking all day long!

Our coffee’s are all hand picked at optimum ripeness, and after washing are sun dried over 10 – 15 days in order to achieve a moisture content of 11-12%.

We currently have +/- 50ha of coffee in the ground and continually replant on an 8 year cycle. This allows us to keep up with the current technology and respond to market demands, particularly in terms of new varieties. By planting new varieties which are resistant to pests and diseases while still maintaining the all important cup quality, we are able to reduce the volume of pesticides that have been used in the past.

The varieties we are currently growing are; Cattura, Catimor 128, Catimor 129, R11 (bourbon selection from Kenya), Red Catuai and a new variety known locally as ‘yellow columbia’

All our coffee is grown at an altitude of 900 – 1,000m above sea level. Interspersed between the coffee fields are riverine forest areas. These areas play an important role in the protection of indigenous flora and flora in the Southern Highlands of Malawi where population pressure has decimated all but a few isolated pockets.

We have also recently embarked upon a program to grow our coffee under shade. Since october 2008 we have planted a large number of trees in our coffee fields. The trees we have planted have been selected for the following reasons; they should be a 'cold' rather than a 'hot' tree in order not to compete excessively with our coffee, their ability to produce the right sort of shade, their attractivness to birds, butterfiies and other fauna, impact on the soil and how they complement the other trees species in our program. We regard this development as an important part of the future of coffee on Satemwa.