Rwanda may be a tiny landlocked nation, but its coffees are world-class. Their coffees often boast bright clean flavor with more balance than Central American offerings and feature a tea-like finish, grown at high altitude on small farms with rich histories in cultivating great coffees. Prior to 2000 Rwanda had mostly relied on cash crops from farmers as the foundation of their livelihood due to poorly invested infrastructure and government policies that encouraged high volumes of crudely processed coffee production; but in that decade saw an incredible revival as international communities rediscovered its great terroir and realized coffee’s ability to bring economic vitality back into their lives and revive their small farms from whom it relied.

Coffee produced here is fully washed and dried under direct sunlight, producing a cleaner cup with more fruited sweetness than Kenya. Since soil organic matter levels are severely depleted, producers use both chemical fertilizers and the California Red Worm as part of an organic revitalization strategy to rebuild it. They also employ water collection and recycling systems that repurpose muddy water left from washing beans back onto their farms as a source of irrigation and additional nourishment for trees.

This lot hails from Hingakawa Women’s Association (half of Abakundakawa-Rushashi Coop, which is 100% female owned). Established in 2004, this association employs sustainable and responsible practices such as using waste water from washing coffee to fertilize their next harvest and presorting machines to select cherry varieties of the highest quality for harvest. Due to high elevation farms here, harvest takes much longer; members typically pick coffee by October every year!

Gihanga Coffee Company operates the Mbizi Washing Station, one of the highest altitude wetmills in Kenya at 2200masl. Here, lots are sourced exclusively from female producers that grow Bourbon varieties on small 4ha farms – their efforts based on producing great quality coffee that pays back them and their families who depend on this industry for incomes.