Specialty Robusta in Uganda with Stephan Katongole

Stefan Kattangoli, a leading Robusta producer and exporter in Uganda, discusses his experience at the World of Coffee event in Denmark and the changing attitude towards Robusta in the coffee industry. He talks about his family farm in Uganda and his journey to convert it from commercial to specialty production, focusing on quality and innovation. Stefan emphasizes the importance of attending trade shows like World of Coffee to get feedback on his product and see the industry's reaction to Robusta. He also mentions the increasing interest in Robusta and the positive direction the Robusta world is heading. Hello everyone, welcome to Robusta Uncovered. On this show, we explore the coffee species Canephora, otherwise known as Robusta. In particular, the people working to elevate its role in the world of coffee. Our goal is to uncover innovative concepts of quality, sustainability, science and culture as they relate to Robusta, leading to greater understanding and engagement within the coffee industry. Today, we are joined by Stefan Kattangoli, a leading Robusta producer and exporter in Uganda. Born and raised in Germany, Stefan returned to Uganda as an adult to take over the family farm. In the process, he became an ambassador for quality Robusta and has spent the past 10 plus years promoting it to clients in Europe. This interview was recorded shortly after the World of Coffee in Copenhagen, Denmark. Stefan and I have a conversation about his experience at this event, what led to a career in coffee, as well as his path to converting his Robusta farm from commercial to specialty production. Welcome, Stefan Kattangoli. Thanks for joining me today. Thank you, David, for having me. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You're very welcome. And I understand, let's just jump right in, and I understand you just returned from World of Coffee in Denmark. How was that experience? Do you often attend trade shows? Was this a new thing for you? Tell me a little bit about your time in Denmark. First of all, it was my first time in Denmark, and it's a really beautiful city, lovely people. It's been really nice over there. And of course, World of Coffee is big, very big, very big, many people. It was my second time at World of Coffee after Milan two years ago, I think. Yeah, it is. It's always nice to meet people in person. The ones maybe you've met before online, yeah, through e-mails or whatever. So, yeah, it's been really full three days, a lot of conversations, met a lot of new people. I have to say it was a really good experience again. What value do you feel like you pick up from the World of Coffee when you go? Do you go in with like a super focused schedule and calendar? Or do you just kind of go and attend and take it all in? Well, the biggest value I think is if you go, I mean, everyone has his own value for his product. I think if you go to a World of Coffee and you bring your product with you, I think the biggest value is to see what are the people actually saying about your product. To give you, to see what is possible, no matter what it is, whether it's coffee or manufacturers or whatever. So my biggest value is, of course, how is the industry reacting to Robusta? I started that journey with my biggest thing I want to know about the industry. And the attitude towards Robusta is changing. And that's also what I saw in Copenhagen. That's really what we're here to talk about. I've noticed as well, I've never been to World of Coffee myself, would love to go. But I've always been at the SCA Expo in the U.S. and have definitely noticed in the past couple of years a bit of a renaissance around Robusta and interest both noticeable through the exhibitors, just more companies presenting quality Robusta. From around the world, honestly, copying coffee origins, presenting coffees that are not only Arabica, but also Robusta, and then also lecture series related to Robusta. Did you kind of notice that this year in Denmark? Was it any different from Milan a couple of years ago? I had the feeling that there was a bit more of Robusta talking and Robusta copying than Milan. And what I personally like that now people are, let's say in inverted commas, publicly talking about Robusta in an open forum, which was not the reason a few years ago. But yeah, there were some more exhibitors who presented 100% Robusta, fine Robusta, as you call it. There were many lecturers about the quality of Robusta, where are we now. A lot of people were there, a lot of people are interested, a lot of people from the industry which maybe have been not really into Robusta a few years ago. And I'm a little bit more open towards Robusta. And that is what not me only personally, but also people I was talking to told me that even now companies who were never looking in the direction of any Robusta in the world, so now they are really open to discuss and they are curious to see what is actually possible these days or which qualities are out there in the market. And which for me is a good sign that the Robusta world is going in the right direction. Great to hear that there was quite a bit of interest and focus on Robusta. I think that is a sign of the times and definitely positive news for those of us that are interested in Robusta and seeing it advance publicly in these really important events. Let's move on from that experience that you just had in Denmark and bring us to Uganda. And I think the purpose of this conversation is really just to get to know you better, to give this information to other people who are working on Robusta or interested in Robusta to understand a little more about your approach to coffee, the uniqueness of Uganda and your story. And I would be just interested for you to tell a little bit about your story and about the fact that I believe you have two farms in Uganda. One is Rabuka and the other one is Robusta. And I would love to hear just how you came to own and operate these two farms. It sounds big having two farms. But maybe to get the timeline straight, let's start with the Robusta farm here. This farm here is our family farm actually. So my granddad bought this farm in the 1960s and by then it was a cow farm. It was not by then a coffee farm, it was more or less a cow and seasonal crops. But after my granddad and my grandma died, the farm was more or less abandoned, let me say that, because no one was taking care of it. And my dad by that time was still living in Germany, said he wanted to come back to rebuild the farm. And that was in the 2000s. And he came back and planted a lot of coffee trees suitable for our area, it was the Robusta or is the Robusta. So he planted a lot of Robusta trees. But he was taking it more commercially, let's say like everyone else did by that time, or is still more or less doing the same way as people were doing it in the past. And then the question came up, of course, what happens if my dad is not able anymore to run the farm? And me by that time I was still in Germany and I was working. I knew Uganda and I knew the farm from holidays, visits, but it's totally different if you have to come to, or you want to come, let me say it like this, you want to come to Uganda and start working on it, making a living out of it. But I decided I want to try out. Maybe I'm always a bit adventurous, I would say maybe. So I say, okay, let me come from Germany to Uganda and work on the farm. So it was 2012. When I came here and my first season was in 2013. And it was really fun, let's say. As I said, I'm a bit adventurous. So I came and started working here on our Robusta farm. Of course, you have all these details you read and looked it up before you come and start working in coffee. But if you are doing it, it's a completely different story. I only knew agriculture from our home gardening at home in Germany. But that's completely different. So I had by that time not really an experience. As I said, you read a lot, you talk to people. You look at things, how things have been done in the past. And then you maybe think about what's possible, what's maybe a bit more modern. And then you try to implement it and you see whether it works. And if it works, then you move on and go to the next thing and then the next thing. And then hopefully you reach the point where you can say now it is something I can work with. Yeah. And so you came back to Uganda, you came to Uganda, took over the farm. And you said it was run pretty commercially. Did you continue kind of status quo running the farm for a number of years? Or what was your path to having more of a focus on quality and trying to do something different with the farm? Yeah, my approach from year one as when I came to the farm, I started working differently like my dad. So I had, you know, coffee usually here in Uganda back in the days was, there was not really taking too much taking care of. And my approach was, let me say maybe like this, you do whatever, what you do with Arabica, you put it on robusta. Meaning that with the very first thing to pick only the red cherries. This was, I think, an exercise over two years to try to get people or to train people to pick just the red cherries because they were only used to strip picking. And I wanted to produce something different, which was very rare by that time. So I had to make sure that every step is being done right. So training the workers which were here on the farm plus bringing in new workers who maybe were experienced from the Arabica area to come and pick our red cherries was the first step. The next step in improving the quality of robusta was, I did wash robusta my first season. So I bought a small hand pump and we washed the robusta, which was 2013, very rare on the market. So I wanted to differentiate myself from what is there on the market and to improve the quality from our coffee, of course, but also to showcase what is actually possible. By that time I didn't know where the way, where this is all going to end up, but I wanted to do something which was different. And just to clarify, different, being washed, the standard robusta from Uganda would have been dry process or natural? Exactly, exactly. Yeah. I would say by that time 97% of all the robusta have been processed natural. There was no washed. So that's why it was so, so rare if I, for roasters who I presented my first harvest or my first season for them to get a washed robusta. And it of course tasted completely differently than the robustas which were out there on the market, which was a good sign. And of course, something after my first season, I wanted to hear because you don't know where you are. You don't know where you start. You just ended the coffee world, more or less. And yeah, and then people need to see what is, what can this guy do or what can this farm do to produce good quality coffee? Yeah, and just a couple more details about the farm itself. It's, tell us a little bit more about the location, altitude, right? People are always interested in altitude and other things that may make it unique. It sounds like definitely processing-wise you came in with a pretty clear idea. Maybe, you know, putting on your consultant's, you know, hat to think about how to differentiate and all that. What things were, what things are unique about the farm? Okay, well, we are located in the greater Massaka area in the Zimbabwe district. And we are here on 1250 meters, which is pretty high for robusta. Usually, as you know, robustas are between 200, let's say, and 600, 800 meters. So, Uganda itself, not this farm, but Uganda itself is pretty unique for the attitude in growing robustas and producing good quality robustas. What this farm, let's put it this way, I try to have everything on the farm. Everything produced stays on the farm and everything is recycled to stay on the farm. So, we are working organically from day one when I took over the farm, meaning we have our own production of manure, pig manure. We add on a lot of different things which are around us to produce our own fertilizers for the trees. Then, what we, since day one, what I was also doing is, I didn't know by the time how important it's going to be in the future, but I've planted a lot of trees in the first year I came. So, now we have kind of a shaded robusta farm, which is very unusual for robustas, at least here in Uganda, because most of the time they are fully sun-grown. So, we have, I would say, 60% shade on the farm. Very diverse, different shade trees, starting from fruit trees, over timber trees, like albizia, grevillea, then the local ones, the indigenous trees. Then the fruit trees I mentioned, avocado, orange, mangoes, all this stuff. So, the climate here on the farm is different if you grow maybe only 5 kilometers away to another farm. And that's what I'm trying to promote also to other farmers to plant trees. People are looking at the farm from outside and they don't understand why we planted so many trees. So, two years ago, they understood it because it was a heat wave and most of the coffee trees around us, they just burned up. And we were still fine. So, this one is something which I try to make clear to robusta farmers, to plant trees. That's one thing which is completely different. You will not find it here in our area. I'm curious to know if the farmers you talk with, if they've been receptive to that idea of planting trees. And also, in your experience, does having more biodiversity on your farm come at the cost of lower yield? Or have you been able to compensate in some way or maintain yields? I guess two questions. One is just about whether or not people have adopted it. And two, what impact have the shade trees had on yield? I don't know how it is in other countries, but people need to see to change their mindset or to change the way that things were doing in the past. Because we were promoting it like 10 years ago to plant trees, but they were not really interested in it. Of course, they brought up the argument, which is not totally wrong, that sun-grown coffee yields much more than shaded coffee. But now when people are coming, they see that it is maybe a very small percentage which you are losing when you have shaded trees. The thing is, you have to treat the shade trees with the same care you take care of your coffee trees. Meaning you have to stump them regularly so that you have kind of an environment between the coffee trees and the shade trees. So if you just plant shade trees and you leave it to grow, it becomes more like a jungle. And with no air to go through, no sunlight to come through, you need both. You need sunlight and you need shade. So that means you have to maintain the shade in the best possible way. Meaning that even a shade tree needs the same attention as a coffee tree. And then you have very, very little percentage loss. I wouldn't say loss, because you profit in other areas of it, but you may lose maybe a few percentage of yield per tree. I suppose also with the biodiversity, you talk about timber and fruit, it's not as if you're not using the land, right? Yeah. You have other goods, other products, the land is still productive, just in a different way. The land is productive and it keeps getting more productive because the things we are doing, you said it yourself, the biodiversity, is something everyone on the farm working, workers, we as a family are profiting from. So, for example, all our food we eat is grown on the farm. Okay, let's say 80% of the food we eat is grown on the farm. So only by that, planting different stuff in between the fields, in between the coffee fields, brings additional income for us and cuts costs at the end, which you have to pay for your workers, which is very... Cost as a farmer is the biggest issue. So by putting in also biodiversity, you can cut costs out. One thing, just to clarify, you mentioned managing the farm organically. I'm guessing it's not organic certified. You just are saying that you're primarily using inputs from within the farm. Is that correct? That's correct, yeah. We are not certified. So, for me and my clients, it is more or less trust, which we rely on. They know, most of them, they were here. They've seen us working. They've seen how the farm looks like. They know all the process of what we are doing and they trust us. And for me personally, I don't want to use any chemicals, any fertilizers, any herbicides or whatever else there for my workers to use on them. So I don't want them to get in contact with it. I don't want me to get in contact with it. So I'm using only organic materials. Let's just pivot a little bit because I did mention or I did ask about your Arabica farm. I don't know if you want to just talk a little bit about that so we can kind of understand how the Robusta farm kind of exists in relation to the Arabica side of your business. Yeah, it's a funny story. When I met my wife here in Uganda, she already bought that farm in the Rwanda. And she was more or less, I wouldn't say experimenting, but she was farming seasonal crops, meaning maize, beans. And when she bought the land, there was already coffee on it. This was like eight years ago. And so we looked at the farm and we said we should try to improve the farm, to bring structure in it. And a few years ago, we started that project as well. So the farm is, as I said, in the Rwanzori mountains, from the Rwanzori area. Very nice, surrounded by the Rwanzoris. And there is Arabica. So we found the Arabica 14 and 28. And we planted now another few acres, but we're not done yet planting. And we also have cocoa there. And of course, the seasonal stuff for the workers we plant. Yeah, that's how I ended up, or us, let me say us, ending up having two farms. One here in the Masake area with the Robusta, and the second one in the Rwanzoris with Arabica. And the Rwanzori mountains where the Arabica farm is located, that's a ways away, right? It's not that close to your Robusta farm. Yeah, it's like four hours, four and a half hours away. So we try to manage both farms by driving back and forth. At least every two weeks, two to three weeks. We are there for a few days, and most of the times we're here on the Robusta farm. But we have, of course, workers there who are working and doing the things and maintain the farm. And the good thing is that the Robusta season is a bit different than the Arabica season. So usually when the Robusta season ends, the Arabica season starts. Maybe like a month or one and a half months later. So we can structure it pretty well. And if not, we find someone who is then on the Arabica farm and takes care of when the season stops. You know, I'm curious because I was introduced to you as something of an ambassador for quality Robusta. And that's how I know you. But I'm just kind of curious with having both an Arabica and a Robusta farm, you know, is that something you intend to continue doing? I mean, Arabica, I think of it as such an easy product to sell in the specialty market, right? It's an easy thing to do. But I also know you're passionate about Robusta. Is your plan to maintain both? Do you see a preference from one over the other? I wouldn't say that I preference one more than the other. Of course, Robusta is my baby. Like 12 or 13 years long, I'm working with Robustas. And with Arabica, as you said, it's easier to get market, to find roasters and so on. But we try to get the best out of both farms and out of both products, whether it's Robusta or Arabica. Of course, a little bit for me, the fun way is the Robusta, because there's a little bit more to fight for. Or to fight again, let me say that. Yeah, yeah, I know. Because when I started in, I'm sure you know that Robusta has no position to be in somewhere near specialty market. And now, as the times are changing, which is good, as I said, and now it's good to see what is on the market. How is the Robusta evolving? What are people now saying? Maybe the same people who 10 years ago said, don't talk to me because you're a Robusta farmer. What are they saying now? And it's funny to see that even those people from the industry are changing their mind slowly, but they are considering really working with Robusta. When the conversation changes, when you get a positive response from a roaster, what is it that does that? Is it you? Do you have an approach to kind of selling your coffees? Or is it the coffee? Is it that they taste the coffee and their perception has changed because of the cup quality? I think roasters, at the end, they need a product they really can work with or they want to work with. So having a good relationship with a roaster is one thing. But at the end, I think, at least if I would be a roaster, I would buy a coffee which I am convinced of that people like it or I like it. So I think the cup quality, the coffee itself, makes 80% out of whether it's been bought or not bought. 20% maybe because, I don't know, the story is nice, which is also a selling point. But for me personally, I want to convince someone because of the cup quality. That's why we are so keen on processing our coffee differently and try to, you know, bring something to someone who has never had kind of a Robusta before. And how much, just sort of roughly in a typical year, how much Robusta are you producing in tons or in bags? We are making roughly 120, 150 bags of different qualities. And the Arabica, as I said, the coffees are still young, besides those ones which are on the farm. We are not exploiting about 20 bags of the old coffee trees which are there. It's from the farm in the rainforest. Can you, from the existing land that you have, produce more coffee than that or is that kind of the maximum? No, we can produce more. There are still areas which we are not using for coffee. We are using for different things, for example. There are untouched areas where we get our mulching material from, which we don't want to lose, for example. Or banana plantations, few banana plantations for the workers. That was integrated, of course, with coffee, but we have some parts which are not for coffee. And we are also planting, still planting, because some trees, they died off or we cut them down and planted new ones. So it is, our goal is, of course, in the nearest future, let's say in the next three years, to produce maybe three quarters of a container. How do you export the coffee? I'm interested in that in a couple of ways, sort of wondering if you're working more directly with clients and handling that. And also, how are your clients buying the coffee? Are they buying this as a micro lot, so a little bit at a time? Or do you sell bigger chunks of coffee to just a few key partners? Yeah, most of them, they are buying it as a micro lot, meaning between 10 to 40, 50 bags. And there are some clients which we are selling coffee to, which are not from the farm, but we're making them ready for them. Meaning more or less conventional robustas, which they want to have kind of a good quality, but not as fine quality robustas. So we are buying FAQ, meaning green beans, sorting, grading, making them export ready. And then we're selling it, that is in bigger volume to specific customers in Europe. But most of the clients that we are buying, we're selling them direct to them. We have an export license here in Uganda with a company and a friend of mine. So we can export our own coffee directly to Germany, to wherever. And I'm guessing with the smaller micro lot shipments, those are consolidated shipments, so they might already be buying other coffees and you would just put the 10 to 40 bags into another shipment. Yeah, usually those guys who are exporting, they usually know each other and they say, I have a container going to Hamburg and I have only 40 bags or 50 bags. Do you want to put your bags as well in the container and then you just consolidate from there, which is kind of a good way, good solution for both of them. You have a wet mill at your farm. And what about the dry milling? Does that happen through you or do you have a third party that handles that service? We can dry mill here at the farm, but the bigger volumes, we do that in Kampala. In those big companies, if we say we want to export a container, then we cannot do that here on the farm. So it's going to be Kampala where we grade, sort, bag the coffees, and then the export also starts then from the factory. I see. And the coffee you mentioned, buying the FAQ coffee, are you doing much larger volumes of that? Yeah, between 100 containers. 100 containers. Yeah. So that's the vast majority of the business then. Yeah. So you alluded to earlier the fact that farmers in the area have to see the difference and that you do have your farm set up as a bit of a model farm. But I'm curious, since you are buying quite a bit of coffee for export, have you seen an impact with your farm influencing other people at a level that it influences the quality that you're able to buy? I see that in recent years people are more attending to their coffees and their coffee plantations than before. And you can see that as well in the qualities of coffee which is produced in different areas of the country. I mean, also the impact or, of course, the prices were pretty high for Uganda or for Robusta in general. So people, they do see now that there is something they can make out of their Robusta and not just planting trees and leave them and see what's coming out. So the quality, yes, of course, because of that increase. And I don't know where it's going to end, but I would love to see that because the coffees I'm buying or the coffees we are buying from different areas, we have seen an increase in the last three years. I would say all over 80, 81. And these are naturals, basically just picked, naturally dried. So now we can see what is possible if you put in some extra effort, some extra processing method, then you can easily get a higher score with these coffees you can buy. And the coffees that you export from your farm, and I suppose you can talk about the other coffees that you buy and export. What are your main markets? Where are you selling the coffee? And where are you seeing interest in higher quality Robusta? One of the main markets for these, I would not say use the term conventional coffee, but it's still a very good quality coffee. It's Europe, Amsterdam, Netherlands, Germany, that area, these areas. My clients are usually open-minded. I wouldn't say other roasters are not open-minded, but these are open-minded towards Robusta. Roasters who buy the coffee, who also believe the future is Robusta, and together we're doing that every season. The Robustas you're selling from your farm, do you know how people use them? Do they use them in a blend for espresso, or are they using them as kind of a single origin offering? Do you know how they're used? Yeah, I know. I think most, meanwhile, all of them are using them as a single origin. There's also a coffee out there, or was, I think now it's sold off, with my name on it. It's called the Coffee My Name, which is pretty good. It was a pretty nice gesture from them. Yeah, that one was a filter. Others use, of course, as an espresso. Looking a little more into your coffees, we talked about the fact that you moved from natural to doing wash coffees early on. I've tasted your coffee, and honestly, I really like it. I think it's got just a great cup character. The coffee that I've tasted from you is honey process. You're doing quite a bit of honey at this point, and I think it's working for you. Tell me about that approach and maybe some of the other processing ideas you have for your coffee. We started with using the wash process for Robustas, and we did that for, I think, six years? Yeah, six years. We were doing wash coffees. Then through a friend of mine who was here on the farm, who was also working in the street, that there's this new hype and using honey processed Arabicas by that time. Then we tried it with the Robustas, and it was, by that time, very funny because we didn't know really how the honey process works. Completely different in drying, completely different in how you handle it. We experimented for one and a half years with this honey before we offered it to the client. We decided to do more honeys, also because of an environmental aspect. You use a lot of water for the wash coffees, and the water needs to go somewhere. After we found the honey process where you use more or less no water, and the taste, by that time, was also very different to the Robustas. They never had a honey process for Robustas. We decided to switch completely from wash coffees to honey coffees, honey processed coffees. Now, last year, we started the anaerobic naturals as well, which turned out also very good, very nice, very different. Now, we are planning for the next season to do more of those anaerobic naturals. With these processing methods, we usually know for the world of Arabica. Now, we can apply them to the Robustas, and you get some products which are really, really nice. We will find their place in the market. In terms of varietals, are you using standard heirloom varietals, or is there anything different about the particular type of coffee that you're planting? We're using the indigenous so-called Nganda and Erekta. These are the varietals we have here in Uganda. You're growing both of those varietals on the same farm. Are those blended together? Do you keep them separate? Yeah. Is there varietal difference between the two, or are they pretty similar? No. In the world of Robustas, it's a bit difficult to go to a nursery and say, I only want Nganda, or I only want Erekta. They just mix it up. It's, of course, completely different to Arabica, where you can get your line, your SN14, 28, or whatever variety. Here, the seedlings you get, most of the time they even don't know which one is which, but you know that is Erekta and the Nganda. Then you have these categories 1 to 10, which are very important to have in your field, because they're cross-pollinated, as you know, maybe. Some produce a lot of coffee per tree. Some are resistant to some diseases. Every seedling of this tree has different attributes, but you get all of them when you buy coffee seedlings. Do you tend to produce your own seedlings at this point in your own nursery, or is there a local source for that? I do buy from a nursery I'm working with for 10 years now, because if you want to do a really good nursery, this is a whole new job, because they need also a lot of attention, and I wanted to focus my work on farming the coffees. Maybe in the future, if I have time and maybe I get some more workers, maybe then you can look for opening up our own nursery. But for now, I'm buying at a source I'm really trusting. They're really making a good job. Yeah. Again, you have to know where to focus your efforts, and having a nursery and growing seedlings is time-consuming, and also, you know, it takes up space on a farm. Yeah. Well, let me ask you just as a closing question, what sort of innovations or what do you feel the future holds for you as a robust producer in Uganda? You know, what do the next few years look like for your operation? Good question. So, my five-year plan? Yeah, your five-year plan, basically. If it's not too much to ask. No, no, no, of course not. Well, as a farmer, you never know what happens the next year or the next week or whatever. But the overall plan is, of course, increasing the drying area. As I said, increasing the quantities, bringing in other innovative processing methods, which by now I don't know yet, because not every method is suitable for any farm or every farm. So, we will see what we are going to process and how we're going to process maybe next year or next year or in two years. But, yeah, and then continuing talking about that robust side in the future, of course, on platforms like yours, because not only for me as a robust farmer, but for all the millions out there who are robust farmers, I think the only way to make a good living is that they can sell their product at a reasonable price to the market, and the market needs to be open now to them, be open to the fact that there is a second coffee species out there, which needs the same attention as Arabica decades ago. So, yeah, that's my personal plan to continue promoting roasters to get interested in working with robusters. Wonderful. Well, Stefan, thank you so much for your time. I really enjoyed the conversation, learning more about you and about your farm and your farms, and I certainly would absolutely love to visit and see it in person sometime. Just as we close, what is the best time of year for somebody that's never been to Uganda to visit a Robusta farm? What's the best time of year to visit? I think now it's between May and July, the end of April, beginning May to July, because we are in the season, the bigger season. The next season is then towards the end of the year, November, December. But, of course, it depends on what you want to see, because you have both here in Uganda, which is kind of unique. You've got your Arabicas and Robustas. So, if you want to see both of them, then you have to find, maybe in June is a good time. Well, I look forward to visiting, and, Stefan, thanks again for your time. Thank you, David. It's been a pleasure. It was really fun.