Tanzania Day 7 - Coffee Making and Caves

After the waterfalls we stopped off at a coffee making place which also had old caves used by the Chagga tribes to hide from the Massai hundreds of years ago!

The story of the discovery of coffee was an interesting one, dating back to an old tribe leader who requested the trees and beans be burnt/destroyed as they were seen as a nuisance, only for the smell of the burning beans to swarm the whole camp and prompt ideas for what could be made from the previously redundant tree!

The process involved stripped the outer layer of the beans by smashing them with a giant pestle & mortar before browning them off in a pan - once booked theyre smashed again until completely powder'd - the whole process is accompanied by a song and dance as well obviously!

We drank our fresh coffee with a nice buffet lunch and afterwards headed down the Chagga Caves! They were a tight squeeze for us and we were told that these were spacious caves for cheifs and important people, the general ones were accessible by crawling through tiny holes! The caves snaked with regular 90degree turns to block out sound and light and also to provide ambush points to attack any Massai that discovered the caves. They had chimney systems, ventalation holes and even access to river that was used to wash away the bodies of Massai killed in the caves.Read more