Introduction to Lake Kivu, a coffee producing area in Rwanda, Africa

African coffee is well known in the global coffee market because the African country Ethiopia is recognized as the birthplace of coffee, and there are many excellent coffee producing countries, such as Rwanda, which is known as the "country of a thousand hills".

Coffee was introduced to Rwanda by German missionaries in 1904, and coffee cultivation began to flourish when it became the only income-earning crop for small farmers since 1930. It continued to grow in the 1960s and 1980s and reached an unprecedented peak in 1986.

However, in 1994, the genocide occurred in Rwanda, which claimed nearly 80 to 1 million lives, the country's demographic structure changed greatly, the economy was on the verge of collapse, and it became one of the poorest and most needy countries in the world at that time. Western countries then raised large amounts of money to help Rwanda rebuild.

The then president, Paul ∙ Kagame, believed that the country's economic lifeline lay in agriculture and understood the potential of coffee. With international aid and his strong support, coffee became a key industry to revitalize the economy in Rwanda. Through the introduction of the Pearl Project (PEARL) proposed by the United States, the purpose of this program is to promote agricultural improvement, increase farmers' incomes and achieve sustainable development in Rwanda. And participate in major global coffee fairs, promote national brands, rely on excellent cups to enter the boutique coffee market, becoming the third African producer to take pride in producing boutique coffee after Ethiopia and Kenya.

In addition, the production of high-quality coffee depends on the country's topography and climate. Rwanda is located on the East African Plateau in east-central Africa and has an extraordinary variety of biological species. there are many wild animals scattered in Rwanda's volcanoes, mountain rain forests and vast plains.

With an average elevation of 1600 meters, Rwanda is mountainous and is known as the "country of a thousand hills". It has five volcanoes, many lakes and many rivers, forming the source of the Nile. The country is close to the equator and has a tropical plateau climate, but the temperature is lower than that of typical equatorial countries, with an average temperature of 25-28 ℃. In Rwanda, February to June, September to October is the rainy season, and the rest is the dry season, with an average annual rainfall of 1200-1600 mm. These natural conditions are very suitable for coffee growth.

Coffee producing areas are divided by provinces, mainly divided into Muhazi Muhazi, Lake Kivu Kive and Weilonga Virunga area, and the harvest time is usually from March to August.

Among them, Lake Kivu Kive is better known, where Lake Kivu is the highest lake in Central Africa and one of the great lakes in Africa, located on the border between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in the Great Rift Valley of East Africa. The lake is surrounded by mountains and the 3470-meter-high Nyiragongo volcano on the north bank. Volcanoes and lakes can create some unique microclimate for the region.

The country is mainly produced by small farmers, and the ripe coffee cherries are collected and sent to the treatment station every year during the harvest period. In the Kive producing area of Lake Kivu, there are many well-known washing stations, such as Twumba washing station.

The Twumba washing station is located in western Rwanda, near the ‌ Nyungwe Forest National Park, and is planted between 1800 and 2200 meters above sea level, where the annual rated temperature is 18 °C.

At that time, Yandagiye Marthe found that there was good coffee grown here, but it was too far from the washing treatment station, so he chose to build a washing treatment station here to support the development of local farmers, improve the local agricultural system and provide jobs for local women, who currently employ nearly 90% of the staff. Twumba Water washing Station became famous in 2018 and won the first place on Rwanda's COE with a score of 90.53 that year.