Records show that coffee arrived in Malawi in the late 1800s. One claim states that John Buchnan, a Scottish missionary brought the first tree from Edinburgh Botanical Gardens. Over less than a century, the annual coffee production was at 1,000 tonnes (1,100 tons).
Despite its promising start, coffee production collapsed due to poorly maintained soils and diseases. After this came the increasing production of Brazil, which didn’t help the situation.
For most of the first part of the 20th century, Africa was under British colonial rule. However, after the cooperative movement started in 1946, coffee production grew dramatically. After a few bad years, Malawi gained back its glory and in the 1990s he made a production of 7,000 tonnes (7,700 tons).
Despite the fact that it is landlocked, Malawi has built a strong agricultural connection making successful exports.
The coffee varieties are grown in Malawi surely cover the extremes of the spectrum. One of their most common coffee is the Geisha variety which has so much interest in Central America. However, there is also a lot of Catimor throughout the country. This type is a disease-resistant variety that generally has an inferior quality.
TRACEABILITY
In the south of Malawi coffee is generally produced on a large scale by commercial estates. In the central and northern regions, it is produced by smallholder farmers. The coffee beans are great from both.
TASTE PROFILE
The coffees from Malawi favor the ones who like sweet and clean coffee. Rarely you can find notes of explosively fruity and complex as other coffees from East Africa.