Rwanda
Raspberry, chocolate, rum
![]() | Huye |
![]() | 1.600 – 2.300 amsl. |
![]() | Red Bourbon |
![]() | Washed |
![]() | Small producers |

Coffee of southern Rwanda
Located on the slopes of Huye Mountain in the Huye District in Southern Rwanda, this private washing station is owned by David Rubanzangabo. David is something of a philanthropist, and cares deeply about the smallholder farmers who deliver their coffee to his station.
Since it was established in 2011, Huye receives cherry deliveries from around 1,330 producers during harvest season, who deliver their freshly picked coffee cherries to 26 collecting stations around the Huye community, where a truck visits daily to collect coffee during harvest season.
Typically, a small holding in the district is just a quarter of a hectare in size, with around 200 trees. The yield is about 4 kg of cherry per tree, so eachfarm only produces roughly 2 bags of coffee.
It is entirely bourbon, which, coupled with an altitude ranging from 1,600 to 2,300 metres above sea level, brings about lots of complexity and great flavours in the cup.

To encourage consistency of quality, David awards members whose coffees carry the highest cupping scores with the prize of a cow (40 members each won one) or a goat (60 winners last year).
A cow makes a huge difference to the lives of a family since it will provide milk for around 6 years and a constant supply of organic fertilizer for the coffee trees.

hen it is put into the receiving tank where inferior floaters are removed. The denser, high quality cherries are then pulped in a Penagos disc pulper before entering a concrete fermentation tank where they are held for 12 to 15 hours.
It is a dry fermentation process meaning that extrawater is not added.

This process is repeated a further 4 times to ensure the coffee is clean before being channelled through water (when further floaters are removed) and is then transported to raised beds for drying.
Initial drainage drying is under shade as the coffee could be damaged at this point if it is exposed to too much heat. Then it is taken to the drying tables in the sunshine where the beans are diligently sorted by hand to remove defects, and turned it regularly.
This can take between 15 to 20 days.

Gravity sorting machines are also used to remove broken beans and foreign bodies before the coffee is finally packed into 60kg bags (lined with Grain Pro) and containerised for export. The coffee is trucked to either Dar es Salaam in Tanzania or Mombasa in Kenya, where it is shipped to our roaster clients around the world.