Four years ago, an email from Mamy Dioubaté in Guinea landed in my inbox. Mamy asked me to taste some Robusta coffee samples for him. As you can read in the short story below, the coffee didn't pass muster back then. But we kept at it together. Today, Mamy's Robusta as an espresso is a sensation! A dense Robusta crema, a creamy and heavy body, and notes of toffee with a long aftertaste distinguish this espresso.
For us, coffee is about building relationships. Coffee grows slowly, and developing quality requires patience. Improvements are made from harvest to harvest, meaning from year to year. It’s a shared learning journey.
Now we can drink Mamy's espresso together with you. And we are incredibly proud to be a part of this project.
Mamy Dioubaté is a pioneer. He has a vision. Mamy wants to “make the future Robusta,” as his motto goes. He supports Robusta farmers in Guinea's rural rainforest region in improving the quality of their coffee harvest.
My encounter with Mamy, the exchange, and the collaboration give me courage for the future. Together, we are taking steps towards social, ecological, and economic improvements in the Macenta region. At the same time, the collaboration is an example of how we want to work with coffee producers.
We have strongly committed to future work with Mamy and pre-financed a significant portion of the next harvest.
Wishing you a wonderful end to the year,
Benjamin Hohlmann
Mamy's Robusta Espresso is now available in our shops:
Here, Philipp and Mamy talk about the work in Guinea and the process of the last few years.
Guinea's Fine Robusta Pioneer
When Mamy's email reached me four and a half years ago, I became curious. Coffees from West Africa, and particularly from Guinea, are rarely present in Europe. Moreover, it was palpable that a doer was beginning to develop a vision.
At that time, Mamy was working on his dissertation at FU Berlin on the "Global Coffee Value Chain." He wrote to me then: "Producers on the ground have serious problems exporting coffee (especially for financial reasons)." If the quality meets European market requirements, <…> I intend to get economically involved and export coffee by the container. In doing so, I aim to: (1) make the coffee known; (2) shorten the value chain to just two levels (farmers -> me -> roasters); in order to (3) reinvest the generated added value proportionately in the producers (fair and stable purchase prices) and sustainable cultivation methods, but also to scale production."
Soon, the coffee sample reached me, and I gave honest feedback.
"The coffee probably lost quality in processing from the tree to the bag. Problematic are various off-flavors that don't belong in coffee, including motor oil and fish. This could have happened due to contamination of the coffee during drying, or during later storage. <…>"
"This might not sound optimistic at all, but we see the opportunities. Yes, the coffee is not yet a Fine Robusta. But this can probably be achieved through better processing. Only if you say that the processes have already been optimized and checked on-site, then I would say the coffee has no potential."
A lot of time has passed since then. Mamy founded Macenta Beans and completely revised the coffee processing with the producers in the region. One of the most modern processing facilities in West Africa now allows Macenta Beans to develop the full potential of the coffee plant.
Mamy believed in the quality potential of good Robustas (technically Canephoras), and we believe in Mamy. From the beginning, we have supported his work, and now together we have launched one of the best Robusta espressos we have ever tasted.
