Mbeya and Songwe

Mbeya and Songwe are, with Ruvuma, Tanzania’s southern highland coffee country. Around the town of Mbeya and the district of Mbozi, at about 1,500 metres, a quarter of a million farmers grow washed arabica, much of it sold simply as “Mbeya”. Some of the finest Tanzanian coffees Coffee Review has tasted came from here, and Songwe now ranks among the country’s two biggest arabica regions.

The short version

• Southern highlands, around Mbeya and Mbozi, at about 1,500 m.
• About 246,000 farmers in TaCRI’s Mbimba area.
• Ruvuma and Songwe: 77.4% of Tanzania’s arabica.
• Softer and more floral than the north, by reputation.
• Harvest from July to December; auctions from mid-June.

What does Mbeya coffee taste like?

Soft and floral. Coffee from the south-west, usually marketed as Mbeya, is “by reputation a bit softer, perhaps more floral than the northern coffees”, Coffee Review says, and the great Tanzanias it has cupped in recent years came mainly from the north or from the Mbeya region. Like most Tanzanian arabica it is washed; the best Tanzanian coffees, Coffee Review says, go through central wet mills, with a second soak and drying on raised tables.

The growing conditions

TaCRI’s Mbimba station in Mbozi, Songwe, gives the picture:

Measure	Mbimba area
Altitude	1,500 m (the station)
Rainy season	Mid-October to mid-April
Rainfall	1,300–1,800 mm
Farmers	About 246,000, and 6 estates
Area under coffee	59,950 ha
Output	About 16,500 t a year
Potential	50,000 t a year

Source: Tanzania Coffee Research Institute.

Coffee in the south grows as a pure stand on smallholdings, not among bananas as in the north, USDA says, and about 40% of southern farmers use inorganic fertiliser.

How much coffee do they grow?

In 2020/21 Songwe grew 12,178 tonnes and Mbeya 2,361, the coffee board says: together more than Ruvuma’s 12,179 tonnes and far more than the north. Songwe, then second among the arabica regions, set out to nearly triple its output, from 11,355 to 32,617 tonnes within three years, The Citizen reports, helped by government plans to distribute 30 million seedlings and ten irrigation wells from the coffee board to fight drought. Today Ruvuma and Songwe together grow 77.4% of Tanzania’s arabica, the coffee board said in 2026.

History and harvest

After independence the government created large state coffee estates in Mbozi, as in Mbinga, Wikipedia says. The southern harvest runs from July to December, by the coffee board’s calendar, and the Mbeya and Songwe auction zone opened on 15 June in 2026, two weeks before the north and Ruvuma.

Mbeya and Songwe and other Tanzanian origins

• Coffee in Tanzania: the whole country, its output and its history.
• Mbinga: Ruvuma’s arabica, the other half of the southern highlands.
• Kilimanjaro: the brighter coffees of the north.