Assessment of the Quality of coffee parchments in Southern Highlands of Tanzania: A case of Mbozi District in Songwe Region

Abstract

It’s unfortunate that even a single defective of a coffee bean can contribute to affect the receptive-lot of coffee. Coffee parchments or beans with high quality fetches high price in the world market. The study aimed at assessing the quality of coffee parchments along the post-harvest stages. Main focus was on improvement of post-harvest practices for coffee quality of coffee from farm level and to the processing under supervision of primary societies. The study involved coffee farmers in 6 Agricultural Marketing and Cooperatives Societies (AMCOS). Questionnaire, check list tools and physical observation were used for data collection. The result indicates that coffee farmers in Tanzania failed to fetch a good price from their produce due to low grades and classes of coffee parchments. Low grades and classes were observed to be attributed by application of poor practices along the coffee value chain. Our study suggests that, coffee stakeholders and the government should support the development of coffee sector along the value chain by up-scaling of good practices.

Keywords: Coffee Quality; Red-Cherries and Parchments, Mbozi Tanzania