Kagera

Kagera grows Tanzania’s robusta. On the western shore of Lake Victoria, around Bukoba, Karagwe and Kyerwa, small farmers grow robusta among their bananas, and the region produces more coffee than any other in the country. Long before coffee was a cash crop here, the Haya people chewed it, as amwani.

The short version

• Robusta, almost all of Tanzania’s, by Lake Victoria.
• The biggest coffee region: 54,203 tonnes in 2024/25.
• Grown with bananas on smallholdings.
• Harvest from May to October; auctions from 1 May.
• Amwani: the Haya people’s chewed coffee.

What does Kagera coffee taste like?

There is no official profile. One US roaster selling a lot from the KPD cooperative in Karagwe, which has more than 4,000 members, describes lemony floral notes at lighter roasts and semi-sweet chocolate and spice at darker ones, a cup it suggests for espresso and cold brew. TaCRI, Tanzania’s coffee research institute, calls Kagera’s robusta “one of the finest” in the world.

How much coffee does Kagera grow?

More than any other region, but the figures swing from year to year, and they don’t agree:

Season	Output	Source
2020/21	78,309 t	Kagera regional commissioner
2020/21	41,429 t	Tanzania Coffee Board
2021/22	45,534 t	Kagera regional commissioner
2022/23	73,745 t	Kagera regional commissioner
2023/24	53,492 t	Kagera regional commissioner
2024/25	54,203 t	Kagera regional commissioner

Source: Daily News (Tanzania); Food Business MEA.

The two 2020/21 figures may measure different things, such as cherry and clean coffee; neither source says. In TaCRI’s Maruku area, the districts of Muleba, Karagwe, Misenyi and Bukoba, coffee covers 51,416 hectares and yields about 21,000 tonnes a year, only 320 grams of clean coffee a tree, against a potential of 1 kg. Kagera grows about half of Tanzania’s robusta, the coffee board says; USDA says almost all of it.

Old trees, new clones

The region is replanting. Its three-year plan, from 2024 to 2027, aims to lift output by 36% to 74,000 tonnes by planting 10,000 hectares with improved varieties, and the coffee board distributed 13 million improved seedlings for 2024/25 with 17 million more planned. Farmers are being urged to replace old trees with clonal robusta from TaCRI at Maruku, which can bear up to 2 kg a tree. Block farms of 4,000 hectares are planned in Karagwe and Muleba. Prices have helped: farmers now earn up to TSh6,000 a kilogram, against TSh1,000 a few years ago.

Auctions and cooperatives

Kagera’s coffee must be sold through cooperative societies (AMCOS), which take it to the coffee board’s auctions. Two auctions in July 2026 earned farmers more than TSh29 billion (US$10.98 million), mostly for cherry coffee: 3.75 million kg sold on 9 July alone, at up to TSh5,310 a kilogram. Rwele AMCOS in Kyerwa sold 113,500 kg of robusta, and the Ngara Farmers’ AMCOS sold certified arabica. Bukoba is also where Tanzania makes most of its soluble coffee, USDA says.

Amwani

The Haya people of Kagera used coffee long before it was a cash crop: they boiled and steamed robusta with herbs and chewed it as a stimulant, and its growing was controlled by their chiefs, Wikipedia says. In 1911 German colonists ordered arabica planted around Bukoba. Read more in our guide to amwani.

Kagera and other Tanzanian origins

• Coffee in Tanzania: the whole country, its output and its history.
• Kilimanjaro: washed arabica from the north.
• Coffee in Uganda: the robusta country across the border.