About Justin Materuni | Chagga Coffee Farmer

My history, in short

Justin Materuni

My name is Justin Materuni. I was born into a family of five children, and I am the second one. Our father and our mother are Chagga, and they are farmers. Coffee, and bananas. That is the work we grew up on, and it is the work that raised us.

These coffee trees, we found them already belonging to our parents. They were planted by our grandmother and our grandfather. So we took up the responsibility of continuing them, and of planting more. I was eighteen years old.

I loved this work. Going to the shamba, looking after these trees. I kept on with it.

Then in 2015 I received one guest from Germany. He gave me support to add more seedlings to the farm. We drank coffee together. Another day he came back, with his friends, to drink coffee and to enjoy it with me and with my family.

My family was very happy when I told them this is my work. They kept giving me heart for it.

If I were not doing this work, maybe I would be doing business. Business is something I also loved very much, outside of this coffee business.

When a guest is going back down to Moshi, what I want is that they had the chance to come and visit, to see the way we make coffee in our tradition, and to enjoy it together with my family.

Justin Materuni standing with his arms folded outside the Materuni Village Office, a thatched Chagga hut behind him

The red earth path running between the thatched huts on Justin's family land

Justin outside the village office, and the path through his family's land.

Three generations, one hillside

The trees came before him

5

Children in the family. Justin is the second

18

His age when he took over the trees and began planting more

2015

The year one guest from Germany changed everything

2

Crops that raised him, coffee and bananas, grown together

01 Inherited

Planted by his grandparents

The trees were already in the ground and already the family's when Justin was born. His grandmother and grandfather put them there. His parents farmed them. He grew up underneath them.

02 Taken up

At eighteen, he took responsibility

Not handed a business. Handed a duty. He took on the care of the existing trees and began putting new ones in the ground beside them, and he says plainly that he loved the work.

03 Opened up

Then a guest came back with friends

The German visitor of 2015 helped him add seedlings, and they drank coffee together. When that guest returned with friends, a family shamba quietly became a place that welcomes people.

Come and visit Justin

The place itself

Where the coffee lesson actually happens

Not a demonstration hall built for visitors. Thatched Chagga huts on the family land, standing among the coffee bushes and the banana canopy that shade them.

Thatched Chagga huts surrounded by coffee bushes, banana plants and flowering shrubs — The huts, standing in the coffee

A raised wooden pavilion with a thatched roof and carved railings, reached by a brick path through the garden — The raised pavilion where guests sit

The red earth path running between the huts and the bamboo fence, under banana leaves — The red earth path between the huts

The mortar being worked while the group gathers around — Where the pounding happens

What you can expect

Four things Justin will always do

These come from how he already works, and from the last line of his letter. He is not selling a ticket. He is inviting you to his family's place.

i He tells you the price before you commit One number on WhatsApp, everything included, and it does not change afterwards.
ii You do the work with your own hands Picking, pounding, roasting, pouring. Nobody watches from behind a rope.
iii You meet the family, not just the guide His own words: to enjoy it together with my family.
iv The money stays in Materuni The farmers, the cooks and the guides are all his neighbours on this hill.