Rwandan 'Mbilima'

Rwandan 'Mbilima' has flavor notes of coffee blossom, nectarine, and green tea - with a juicy and syrupy body. This coffee comes from the Dukunde Kawa cooperative, a respected producer group in Rwanda. The co-op is certified by Fair Trade, Organic, Rainforest Alliance, UTZ, and more, and over 80% of its workforce is women. Their farms and washing stations are in the Northern Province, where specialty coffee is less common than in the west and south. Dukunde Kawa started in 2000 with just one wet mill, before most washing stations even existed in Rwanda. Since then, they’ve won sustainability awards from the Specialty Coffee Association and placed high in Rwanda’s Cup of Excellence. Today, the co-op has over 2,000 farmer members and four washing stations - Mbilima is one of them. Dukunde Kawa opened the Mbilima washing station in 2005 to make it easier for farmers to deliver coffee cherries during harvest. The next closest station was so far away that the long trip hurt coffee quality. Mbilima and its farmers earned organic certification in 2015. The station sits at 2020 meters, making it one of the highest in Rwanda, and benefits from mineral-rich volcanic soil and lush surroundings. Because of the high elevation and local climate, harvest here progresses slowly and lasts into October, multiple months past the majority of the country. In the late 2000’s, one of East Africa’s most successful coffee interventions, P.E.A.R.L. (Partnership for Enhancing Agriculture in Rwanda Through Linkages), helped Rwandan coffee grow throughout the international market. P.E.A.R.L. was a sweeping infrastructure and education investment targeting large regions of Rwanda whose coffee was for the most part processed at home and exported with little traceability. The program was designed and led by the University of Michigan, Texas A&M, and a host of Rwandan organizations. They built washing stations and organized remote smallholders into cooperative businesses capable of specialty partnerships. They revitalized legacy bourbon coffee varietals. The snappy acidity, stone fruit flavors, and fragrant herbaceousness found in Rwanda’s coffee is still completely unique to bourbon produced anywhere else in the world. AROMA: coffee blossom, maple syrup FLAVOR: nectarine, tangerine BODY: juicy, syrupy FINISH: green tea, brown sugar REGION: akanduga, gakenke VARIETY: local bourbon cultivars PROCESS: washed, then sun-dried PRODUCER: dukunde kawa co-op ALTITUDE: 1500 – 2100 meters above sea level CERTIFICATION: organic