Fine coffee Rwanda coffee producing area Western Province Lutexiluo producing area

Rwandans have been growing coffee since colonial times, but until 1999, its products were still classified as below Class C and in the global market.

No one cares about it. The reason for the poor quality is that farmers do not have a fixed procedure for washing coffee beans and do not process coffee fruits according to specifications in time. Buyers buy coffee beans at $0.33 per kilogram, and farmers maintain food and clothing on meagre profits earned at low prices, but they are still in a state of poverty.

In 1999, 220 coffee growers formed guilds in the Malaba area (formerly part of Butare province) to address the disease. Among the guild members, many farmers were separated from their loved ones by the 1994 mass massacre, while some husbands were jailed or were taken to the traditional Gacaca Court (gacaca) to face trial on charges of participating in the massacre. They named the guild "Abau Zam Gambi" (Abahuzamugambi), which means "people who work together to achieve their goals" in Rwandan. Farmers hope that by setting up this association, they will be able to work directly with Geely's exporters instead of peeling layers of skin through intermediary transportation companies, so as to increase profits. Farmers distribute their profits and spend them on tools, fertilizers and seeds to increase production.

In 2000, the Mayor of Malaba requested development assistance from the National University of Rwanda (UNR), which is located near the city of Butare, and the following year, the National University of Rwanda assisted in the establishment of the Joint strengthening Rwanda Agricultural Partnership (PEARL). The PEARL project is also supported by several organizations: the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Michigan State University, Texas A & M University, and many other Rwandan organizations, including the National University of Rwanda, the National Agricultural Laboratory (ISAR) and the Gejali Institute of Technology Management (KIST). In February 2001, PEARL began working with Abauzam Gamby to improve the quality of coffee to meet the standards of the professional coffee market in the United States, and then sell the coffee to the United States.

The first problem for Malaba coffee farmers is to set up a cleaning station. The coffee fruit must be transported to the cleaning station to wash the sugar under the skin of the coffee bean within 12 hours after picking, otherwise the flavor of the coffee will be greatly damaged. In July 2001, with funding from UNR, the Ministry of Culture and Industry of Rwanda (Office des Cultures Industrielles du Rwanda,OCIR-Caf é), ACDI/VOCA and ISAR, they set up the first cleaning station near the main road in the Cyarumbo district. However, the cleaning station was not opened until the harvest time, so only 200 kilograms (441 pounds) of the harvest were washed that year. However, the result was surprisingly good. In 2002, the cleaning station was upgraded to supply more coffee processing. ACDI/VOCA is responsible for funding the construction of pipelines to bring in Mount Huye mineral water and help improve the efficiency of cleaning stations. The pipeline was opened in March 2002.

During the 2002 harvest season, Rwanda introduced a new certification system to ensure that coffee beans shipped to cleaning stations are of proper quality. About half of Abauzam Gambi's members are certified, and cooperatives are able to find buyers in professional markets in Europe and North America.

Be recognized by the world

Malaba coffee beans are manually selected and classified according to their quality.

Malaba coffee beans are manually selected and classified according to their quality.

PEARL brought coffee experts to Rwanda to maintain contact with the seller, the Public Coffee Company (Community Coffee) in Louisy, USA, and sent samples to Louisiana. In June 2002, representatives of public coffee visited Malaba. At that time, the current President of Rwanda, Paul Kagame, declared the importance of the plan on behalf of the government. Public Coffee bought 18000 kilograms (40000 pounds) of Malaba beans at $3 per kilogram above the average market price. Coffee beans are shipped to Louisiana, where they are roasted locally and used in the company's delicate coffee. It is also the first direct contract between an American roaster and an African coffee cooperative.

Comic relief, a British charity, has also taken an interest in Malaba. They pledged to use some of the 55 million pounds earned from their 2001 Red nose Day (Red Nose Day) in Britain and Africa to donate to the Genocide Widows Association (Association des Veuves du Genocide,AVEGA), an association set up for the widows of the 1994 Rwanda massacre. The charity found that many Malaba farmers are also members of AVEGA, so they can provide funds and assistance to Malaba farmers through AVEGA. They then contacted the British coffee roasting company (Union Coffee Roasters) and their representatives visited Malaba together with senior officials of the International Fair Trade labelling Organization (FLO) in 2002. After a group of people visited various places, they awarded proof that Malaba coffee had also become a commodity for the first time for Rwandan cooperatives to gain fair trade status. UCR described Malaba Coffee as "flashing citrus flavors with rich, sweet chocolate notes" and bought all the unsold products during the 2002 harvest.

In early 2003, UCR distributed Malaba coffee through the Sainsbury's supermarket in Sainsbury and sold it in its 350 stores until Red nose Day that year. In 2003, Abauzam Gump made a net profit of US $35000. Of this, 70 per cent is allocated to farmers at a price of US $0.75 per kilogram, more than three times the profits earned by other Rwandan coffee growers and enough to cover previously unaffordable health care and education services. The remaining 30% is invested in cooperatives and used to buy calcium carbonate, an agricultural lime that can reduce the increase in acidity of the soil due to the loss of minerals by rainfall.

Coffee and beer

Since 2003, when PEARL thought that the mode of operation was self-sufficient, it gradually reduced the financial support of the Abauzam Gambi cooperative. Cooperatives provide grower loans to help improve their living standards and can invest in livestock, health insurance and education. A cooperative bank opened in the village in March, allowing farmers to maintain and manage their deposits locally without having to trek to the city of Butare.

People revolved around the computers in the new telecom center in late 2004, when the London simultaneous Brewery (Meantime Brewery) began to offer coffee beer made from coffee beans produced by Malaba. The drink is identified as an alcoholic chilled cappuccino or digestif. After tasting coffee from all over the world, the chief brewer decided to add a small amount of vanilla and chocolate to Malaba coffee, which tastes better than nutty coffee and bitter coffee from South America. The original beer had an alcohol content of 4%, the same caffeine content as coffee and was described as "silky and mellow". Coffee and beer are sold in large branches in Sainsbury and in some bars and clubs. The drink is one of the only two Fairtrade-recognised beers in the UK market, and it was not until 2006 that it lost its Fairtrade status by reducing coffee rates and increasing alcohol content (now 6 per cent). Coffee beer is still made from Malaba coffee beans and is the only coffee beer recognized in the British Isles and won the gold medal in the world beer cup coffee flavor beer category in 2006.

In 2006, the Swedish Minister of Development and Cooperation and Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Karin Jemtin (Carin Jamtin), visited Malaba to expand cooperation between Sweden and Rwanda and to promote Malaba coffee to the Swedish professional market. In July 2006, a remote center (telecentre) opened in Malaba under the coordination of PEARL, USAID, NUR and Washington State University (WSU). Among them, the Digital Gap reduction Center (Center to Bridge the Digital Divide,CBDD) provides funds and resources. Three WSU students stayed in Rwanda for six weeks to help set up the centre and train local staff. The center is now run by local staff.

Geographic and climatic editing

Malaba Coffee grows in southern Rwanda, about 12 kilometers (7 miles) from the city of Butare and 150 kilometers (93 miles) from the capital, Gejali. The plan began in the Malaba area of Butare province, but was taken over by a local government organization in 2006, which is now part of the Huye district of the southern province. Due to its proximity to the East African Rift Valley and the Neuenway Forest Mountains, this zone is sloping, steep and has fertile volcanic soil. Coffee is grown at 1700 to 2100 m (5577-6889 ft) above sea level, usually with terraces on steep hillsides. The zone also has an average annual rainfall of 115 centimeters (45 inches). Most of them come from the rainy season from March to May, which is also the main coffee harvest season. The temperature at high altitude is slightly lower, with an average of about 20 °C (68 °F), which varies slightly due to seasons.

Production process editing

Coffee fruit

Coffee fruit

The biggest harvest season for Rwandan coffee is during the main rainy season, from March to the end of May. During the harvest season, farmers spend most of their day picking coffee fruits by hand. In the afternoon, farmers carry coffee fruits in traditional baskets made of banana leaves to a cleaning station a few hours away. The mechanic picks out the best quality crimson coffee fruit by hand and returns the remaining coffee fruit to the farmers and sells it at a low price in the market outside the Malabaga work area. The mechanic pays the farmer $0.10 per kilogram. The guild deposits the remuneration into the farmer's bank account every two weeks.

The sink technician in the process will clean the coffee immediately because the delay will ferment the sugary outer layer of the coffee beans, ruining the taste of the coffee. The coffee beans are first thrown into a deep trough, and the best quality coffee fruit goes into the bottom and passes through a machine that peels off its skin. The mechanic takes out the floating coffee fruit, processes it in the same way and allows the cooperative to sell it at a lower price in the domestic market. Coffee beans through three cooperative peeling and selection machines, remove the skin and sugary outer layer, and then let the coffee beans individually through the vibrating filter. The filter separates the highest quality A beans from those classified as Class B; the two grades are transported to the hills with a 1% slope of the waterway. In the process of transportation, coffee beans of all qualities are further classified, and there are about 15 sinks at the bottom of the channel that can capture different kinds of coffee beans. Coffee beans are preserved continuously in water. Grade A beans and grade B beans stay for two days and 15-20 hours respectively to slightly ferment and convert the remaining sugar without serious damage to the taste.

After the washed coffee beans are air-dried on the net rack, after washing the coffee beans many times to completely remove the remaining skin and sugary outer layer, the coffee beans are put into the sheltered rack to air-dry. Cooperative staff regularly flip coffee beans, while technicians continue to look for and pick out poor quality coffee beans. The two-week drying process takes place in the sun (prepare the mulch in case of rain) and keep turning the coffee beans. This step reduces the water content of coffee beans from 40% to 12%.

Then the mechanic transported the coffee beans to the technology center near Chez. Some machines installed in warehouses on the hills remove the cutin from coffee beans. The staff sent the coffee beans to nearby research institutes for final quality control-manual sorting, which was carried out by several experienced women. After bagging and labeling according to its quality, the coffee beans can be stored in the warehouse waiting for the market.