Zimbabwean coffee history

Zimbabwe used to grow around 15,000 tonnes of coffee a year. The Eastern Highlands produced some of the finest arabica in Africa, and buyers around the world knew the name.

But the wealth only went to a few. Most of the value never reached the communities who worked the land, and that supported the structural problems of the coffee industry across Africa: grow the beans, sell them raw and cheap, and let others roast them and keep the profit.

The 2000s were painful for the country. Farms fell silent, buyers stayed away and coffee production collapsed to a fraction of what it had been.

It has taken nearly three decades to recover.

The children impacted by those years are now the grown-ups. That is us. We are here to build on that struggle, not to forget it.

We want to thank Nespresso and TechnoServe for the recovery programme they ran together. Through Nespresso's Reviving Origins work, TechnoServe trained and supported smallholder farmers in eastern Zimbabwe from 2018, helping farms replant, improve quality and reach international buyers again.

That work showed that Zimbabwean coffee could come back.

Today Zimbabwe exports around 700 tonnes of coffee, yet imports around 2,000 tonnes of roasted coffee. The country sells its beans and buys the finished product back.

That is what we are changing. We buy Zimbabwean coffee at a premium, roast it locally and post it to the world.

As the movement gains traction, we are going to build the blueprint of what Africa can be, and show that it can be done properly: fair prices for farmers, value added at home, and a product the world is proud to drink.

We are building it in step with the 2030 goals set by the government of Zimbabwe.