Rwanda Huye Mountain Arabica Green Coffee Beans (1kg)

HUYE MOUNTAIN

Located on the slopes of Huye Mountain in the Huye District in Southern Rwanda, this private washing station is owned by David Rubanzangabo.

David grew up the area and established the washing station in 2011. He has sincebuilt another site nearbyto theoriginal washing station to allow for a greater number of deliveries during harvest season.
Davidis aphilanthropistwho cares deeplyaboutthesmallholderfarmerswhodelivertheir coffee to his station, and constantly strives to make improvementsto ensurethat the

1330 farmerswho deliver cherry to Huye receive fair prices and premiums based on the quality of the coffee they produce.
Alongside payments, David also rewards the farmer groups he works with with social premiums and quality incentives -such as cows, goats,access to micro-loans, school fees and health insurance. In addition, David has driven environmental changes at Huye, initiating a water reduction program, which involves recycling water used for pulping, with the aim of reducing use atthe station by a third.

During harvest season, producers 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 4kg of cherry per tree, so eachfarm only produces roughly 2 bags of coffee. It is entirely Bourbon, which, coupled with analtitude ranging from 1,600 to 2, 300 metres above sea level, brings about lots of complexity and great flavours in the cup. David's drivefor quality has brought about a big increase in prices for local farmers. Confirmation of the high levels of quality thatthey are producing is Huye's success in the Cup of Excellence: 2nd place in 2012, and 6th and 11th in 2013 with twocompeting lots.

The processing is based on washingthe coffee with a set up that is typical throughout East Africa. The freshly delivered coffee is inspectedto ensure only good red and ripe cherries are included. Then it is put into the receiving tank where inferior floatersare removed. The denser,

high quality cherries are then pulped in a Penagos discpulper 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. After this the mucilage is loose enough to be washed away and the tank is then filled withwater and the coffee turned with a large wooden paddle before being drained.This process is repeated a further 4 timesto ensure the coffee is clean before being channelled through water (when further floaters are removed) and is

then transportedto raised beds for drying. Initial drainage drying is under shade as the coffee could be damaged atthis point if it is exposed to too much heat. Then it is taken to the drying tables in the sunshinewhere the beans are diligently sorted by hand to remove defects, and turned it regularly. This can take between 15 to 20 days.

The parchment coffee then goes to storage to be held for two months while it conditions (the evening of moisture content)before being trucked to the mill of our sister company, Rwanda Trading Company, in Kigali. Here the parchmentis milled away and any further defects are removed using light sorting machines. Gravity sorting machinesare 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.

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Lot 0320
Cup Profile: Peach& golden raisin with a refined citrus acidity and long aftertaste. Cup Score: 86.5
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