The coffee story
Heritage and innovation unite on the Edelweiss and Gaia Farm coee estates with decades of family farming, invention and originality. We create bold, smooth, aromatic flavours while experimenting with new, complex original blends that break the traditional coffee mould and challenge our customers’ tastebuds.
At the core of Edelweiss and Gaia Farm operations is a deep love of the land, an affinity with the local communities and a special appreciation for our daily African wildlife residents. We recognise the importance of preserving and carefully managing the abundant biodiversity of this wild, spectacular landscape to ensure that our farms operate for generations to come, in peaceful coexistence with nature.
Our history
Edelweiss and Gaia Farm are a family business. Coffee is our life and defines who we are. Most of our farming families have been with us for generations. Our employees are the lifeblood of the farms and we ensure that they and their families are appreciated, rewarded and assisted. We take the utmost care to produce the best coffees and ensure that our clients receive their coffee in the best possible condition. Our “hands-on approach” allows us to control every process and provide full traceability of all coffees, from daily picking and pulping to fermenting, drying and delivery. We are uniquely set up as a fully vertically integrated operation benefiting from our own dry mill. We can offer tailor-made exports serving the specialty market and each individual buyer’s needs. We also roast our products to offer our unique beans for local consumption.
Our coffee story spans over 90 years in the remote farming community of Oldeani on the edge of the Ngorongoro crater, a UNESCO world heritage site. Our farms also coexist with the Serengeti ecosystem which makes part of the native foraging land of our neighbours the Hadze, the last hunter-gather tribe who communicate with a unique click language. Our two estates, Gaia Farm and
Edelweiss Oldeani, stretch across 500 ha and produce almost 400 tonnes per annum. We grow several varietals... Bourbon (N39), Kent, SL28, K7, KP423, Batian, Gesha, Pacamara and Ruiru 11. Our coffees
are fully traceable and we can offer micro-lots from specific microclimates and even specific varietal lots.
Growing coffee in harmony with nature
We grow shade coffee, mulch with our own grass and leaf cover and carefully manage our soils and water. The Ngorongoro forest is comprised entirely of indigenous trees and bush and is home to elephants, buffalos, lions and numerous smaller antelopes. One third of our farm is reserved as wildlife corridors and natural bush with watering holes. We have reserved one third of our farm as natural bush with watering holes to serve as corridors for migrating wildlife.
