Irente was one of the experimental coffee estates established in 1896 by the German colonial government´s plantation company (Deutsche-Ostafrikanische Plantagengeschellschaft). Other estates established in the same year were Gare, Maweni, Sakharani, and Mazumbai. The aim was to test coffee as a crop, but due to soil infertility, coffee as a plantation crop was abandoned by 1914.
