Rwanda
Africa
Rwanda is known as “The Land of a Thousand Hills.” It has an ideal climate, high altitude and rich soils, perfect conditions for the cultivation of coffee.
Coffee was introduced to Rwanda by the Belgium Colonial Empire in the 1930’s. At that time, the focus was on high volume, low quality product for export. It continued this way until the coffee price crisis of the 1980’s and the subsequent genocide in 1994. The country needed to be rebuilt, and coffee has become a centerpiece of the Rwandan renaissance.
La Minita sources its Rwandan coffees from the Western Highlands of the country on the shores of Lake Kivu. We work directly with selected washing stations. Each of these washing stations purchase fruit directly from hundreds of small farmers. The fruit is hand sorted to ensure perfect ripeness before processing begins.
At the washing stations, the coffee is processed to the same exacting standards of our coffees from Costa Rica. Any station we work with has depulping, fermentation and washing steps with the ability to separate the coffee by quality. Drying of the coffee takes place on raised beds and we have the parchment hand sorted while it is drying.
The parchment coffee is moved to Kigali for dry processing. Each incoming arrival is analyzed physically and cupped before it is received. After hulling, the coffee is sorted by density and size before another hand sorting process.
Our fully washed Rwandan coffees have a balance of bright acidity and good body with a tone of berry fruitiness. Our unwashed microlots display a strong consistent fruity character with a delicate acidity.