RWANDA raspberry jam ∙ gooseberry ∙ redcurrant
This coffee is from Rulindo, the mountainous area of North Rwanda. Buliza is a wet-processed coffee, containing mostly peaberries of Bourbon, Jackson and Mbirizi varieties.
E
ast Africa offers excellent coffees, just think of Burundi, Kenya or Ethiopia. 99 % of the coffee produced in Rwanda is arabica, the rest is robusta. The cherries are most often wet-processed, but sometimes dry-processed. There are about 300 processing stations in the country. An overwhelming majority of the farmers have a farm that is smaller than 1 hectare, each having only about 200 coffee bushes. One bush yields about 1,7 kg of cherries on average. As a result, farmers often have to join and mix their crop so that they have a batch that can then be processed. Rwandan coffees are complex and balanced, but what makes them different from Ethiopian, Kenyan and Burundi coffees are that Rwandan coffees have a unique combination of sweetness, floral aromas and fruitiness. Buliza is a washing station established in 2008 in the mountain region of Rulindo. The growing regions are located at the altitude of 1600–2000 metres and have rich, volcanic soils that are ideal for
coffee growing. The washing station is operated by Abokamu, which is co-operation of 189 members. The members are provided with medical insurance and are given free fertilizer and training sessions. The 500 small farmers in the area are also happy to sell their crop to the co-operation. The cherries are pulped and wet-processed, washed then soaked in cold water for about 16 hours. They are then sorted by hand, and spread and dried on elevated African beds for about 15 days, protected from the direct sun.
Our coffees taste the best when extracted with water of the proper hardness* range. In order to highlight the best flavour of our roasts we recommend having 5 to 10 days of resting period after roasting, but consume within two weeks of opening. Enjoy!
Buliza mostly consist of peaberry beans. Unlike the regular flat coffee beans, these beans are round. As it is quite a rare occurrence that only one of the two seeds in the cherries gets fertilized, peaberries only give about 4-7 % of a regular harvest. Since the nutrients in the fruits are not shared by two beans, peaberries are more dense and harder in structure than regular, flat coffee beans. They also behave differently during roasting and they add a special flavour to the coffee. * Total hardness: 50 –175 ppm CaCO3 (2.9–9.8 °d), ppm CaCO3 (2.2–4.2 °d), pH: 6.5-8.0.
alkalinity/buffer: 40 –75 (The SCAE Water Chart)
photo by The the Nordic Collaborative Approach Coffee Source
BULIZA