Uganda TOH champion Kawahibi / Cabewa

Uganda TOH champion Kawahibi / Cabewa

Uganda Kawa Cooperative / Kabewa; Picture / from the Internet

Every year, major coffee producing countries in Africa hold a national raw bean competition called "The Taste of Harvest; TOH", similar to the Cup of Excellence in Central and South America. TOH has become an arena for discovering the best coffee in Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda and Congo.

The 2017 Harvest season Flavor Competition in Uganda was won by "Kawa Cooperative / Cabewa" (Kawacom/Kabeywa). Fisher coffee from Qingdao, China won the bid!

Many people think that Uganda only produces Robusta, but in the Mount Elgon region of Uganda's eastern Kapchorwa province, which borders Kenya, coffee is as good as boutique Kenya. The "Kawa Farmers'Co-operative" (Kawacom Farmers' Group), which won the harvest season, is located in Aigang Mountain. It was founded in 2000. At first, it had 5000 farmers, but now it has more than 10 000 farmers. Individual farmers are very small, with coffee trees ranging from 200 to 500, mixed with other crops such as bananas and soybeans, with an average farmland area of only 0.5 hectares. in the past, farmers tended to use crude peeling machines to deal with cherry fresh fruit. Kawa built a first-class washing plant and vigorously persuaded farmers to send cherries to the central processing plant to improve their quality.

The variety planted by Ugandan farmers is SL14, the SL28,SL variety comes from the research and selection of Scott Lab, and Kenya coffee is world-famous for SL28 and SL34, so the Ugandan government vigorously promotes and distributes SL seeds to farmers. Among them, SL14 not only has good flavor and drought resistance, but also can be harvested after two years of planting, which meets the needs of farmers.

Aigang Mountain is a still volcano. It is said that it was once the highest peak in Africa. Local people believe that gods live on the top of the mountain, far beyond the reach of mortals. When the gods are happy, there is plenty of rain and dew, the whole hillside benefits, everything grows, and everything is green. Kawa members' coffee gardens are scattered in Aigang Mountain. After the volcanic activity ceased, a huge volcanic crater was formed at the top of Aigang Mountain, which was then saved into a lake, where streams diverted down to irrigate crops on the hillside. During the rainy season, the stream rises sharply, forming a spectacular waterfall, of which the waterfall of "Sipi" is the largest, falling 200m.

The Kawa Cooperative is the first organization in Africa to participate in the Organic Sustainability Program, which was launched in 2002 and became the first coffee in Africa to receive UTZ CERTIFIED certification. Compost is used for good shading. Kawa's washing plant is equipped with first-class equipment and focuses on handling cherries sent by farmers. on the same day, the peel and pulp are mechanically removed and strict washing procedures are followed. Kawa collects cherry fruits from nearby farmers at nine locations and names them at different elevations and collection points. Kawa, who won the championship this season, was collected in "Kabeywa", the runner-up beans also came from Kawa, and the collection point was in Masira. In fact, different batches of Kawa in the new production season in 2017 won seven of the top 10 in TOH, including the first three, which are all different batches of "Kawahibi", which is incredible!

Starting from 2015, Kawa not only does washing treatment, but also does micro-batch sun treatment, first removing unqualified floating beans, and then drying in the sun for three weeks, during which the fresh fruit is constantly turned to avoid fermentation or mildew to achieve a very clean and rich flavor.