Episode 367 on Monday 23rd of November 2015 Rwanda Karongi Mubuga washed bourbon

This coffee is from the town of Mubuga in the Karongi District in the Western Province of Rwanda, approximately a 3 hour drive from the capital city Kigali.

Processed at the Karongi Washing Station where ripe cherries are delivered to the mill are graded, sorted, de-pulped using Pinalhense pulper (4 MT/hour yield) and then double fermented (12 hours wet and then 18 hours dry.) The parchment is then soaked in clean water for 24 hours.

The parchment is then rinsed thoroughly and sorted in washing channels and then dried on raised beds.  The drying period averages 15 days. The coffee is turned by hand at regular intervals and the raised beds allow for air circulation around and under the coffee. During the hottest parts of the day, the coffee is covered to avoid over-exposure to sunlight and heat. The coffee is then transported to Kigali for dry milling and export (road transport to port of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania).

Rwanda is a country that has a troubled past. In the early 1990s, coffee was Rwanda’s most lucrative export with the country exporting 45,000 tonnes of it in 1990. Events in the 1990s, however, decimated Rwanda’s coffee industry. Most importantly, the 1994 genocide claimed the lives of nearly a million Rwandans, destroying Rwanda’s economy and erasing much of the specialised knowledge needed to export coffee profitably. Simultaneously, world coffee prices plummeted in the 1990s due to increased worldwide production and consolidation of purchasing by multinational corporations.

Rwanda currently produces less than half the amount of coffee it produced in 1990. However, it makes a much higher quality coffee now and has been involved in the Cup of Excellence program in recent years, being the first African country to do so.

Rwanda’s climate, altitude, and high-quality Bourbon-variety coffee trees give it the ability to produce high quality coffee for the specialty coffee market. Rwanda's also been helped by foreign aid agencies on how to maximise their efforts in this area.

In the cup expect something super quaffable, a lovely creamy cup that may very well make you think of a banana milkshake!  This is super sweet; think fudge and Dolly Mixtures melted and mixed together.  On the finish there's a little pop of spice but that creamy sweet mouthfeel carries on and on.

• Country: Rwanda
• Region: Western Province
• District: Karongi
• Town: Mubuga
• Washing Station: Karongi
• Altitude: 1,788 m.a.s.l.
• Varietal: Bourbon
• Processing Method: Fully Washed
• Average Temperature: 20°C
• Rainfall: 1,218 mm. a year. Wettest month is April with 173mm.
• Soil: Sandy & stoney, water is sourced from an underground spring.