Introduction to the Lutesilo producing area of the western province of Rwanda, which is mostly grown by bourbon.

Rwanda has been growing coffee since colonial times. Although coffee is the main crop, the quality of coffee produced in Rwanda is not outstanding. The status of coffee in the world is low and few people pay attention to it. Rwanda grows mostly bourbon coffee varieties. Rwanda, known as the "country of thousands of hills", has a high altitude mountain environment, fertile volcanic soil and abundant rainfall, which is conducive to the growth of coffee trees. The advantages of varieties combined with excellent natural conditions should have produced high-quality coffee, but why is the coffee quality not satisfactory? The reason lies in the later processing links. Improper processing will reduce the quality of coffee and sacrifice many good flavors in vain. Harvesting, planting, processing, grading, transportation and other links will directly affect the quality of coffee beans, in which the lack of control in a certain link will become a stumbling block to make good coffee.

Coffee fruits need to be transported to the processing plant as soon as possible after picking, but due to lack of facilities in the country, it is impossible to process the fruits in the first time. The fruits accumulate together after being picked, and lack of ventilation will continue to accelerate mold and rot. The rotten fruits will affect the quality of coffee and appear defective flavor.

Rwanda has made great progress in coffee production and processing in recent years. First of all, coffee fruit is picked manually; coffee production cooperatives are set up all over the country to provide technical guidance to coffee farmers; coffee farmers send coffee processing stations for cleaning and screening as soon as possible after picking, and select mature and high-quality coffee fruits for processing. The washing method first washes and floats the ripe coffee fruit, then removes the exocarp, pulp and part of the pectin layer, then sends the coffee to the fermentation tank, ferments the remaining pectin layer and sends it to the drying field for drying treatment, so that the moisture content reaches about 13%. The coffee in the above picture is placed on the African shed for drying to avoid the coffee contaminated with soil. The ventilation effect is better during drying to avoid mildew. During the drying process, coffee farmers will also turn the beans regularly to make the drying more uniform, and at the same time will select the beans with poor quality and discard them.