Lot 175, coffee of origin Empangeni is a smallholder lot from Jill Tayfield and her son Alan. This coffee is one of our SA grown coffees in this month's extremely limited edition Discover Great Coffee Club Box, which you can order now!
Jill and her son, Alan, began their coffee growing journey by planting seeds from the coffee trees that once thrived in Jill's mother's garden. Over the past eight years, Jill and Alan's dedication as gardeners had brought more than 700 new trees to life in the old food orchard on their property. Beneath the heavy canopy and shade of this, grow the coffee trees, the original SL34 trees and some younger SL28 arabica trees.
We chatted to Jill to get a few insights into their story.
"I was born and grew up on the farm. One day, I found the gardener weeding the small seedlings under an old coffee tree in the garden. When I told him it was coffee ,he got excited and decided to plant them."
"We are sugar farmers and most of our neighbours are cane farmers too. We are situated just out of Empangeni., in Zululand."
"The seedlings grew well and in due course produced berries. We then contacted Dylan Cumming from Red Berry, who helped and taught us about coffee growing. Once the beans were dry, he collected them for roasting and packing."
"We were surprised to learn that it was an excellent coffee and has become popular. We continue to plant more seedings in any available space. It is more a hobby than a huge commercial business. We have only one lady who looks after the coffee and is very selective in her picking, which helps with the quality."
You can buy the very exclusive and extremely limited edition Discover Great Coffee Club Box this month, featuring our 6 SA Grown coffees, including this one from Lot 175, Empangeni.
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