Fruit-scented Rwandan coffee beans taste the characteristics of the manor producing area introduction to Rwanda boutique coffee beans

Rwanda has been growing coffee since colonial times. Although the crops are mainly coffee, the quality of coffee produced in Rwanda is not outstanding, and its status in the coffee world is low, and few people pay attention to it. Most of the coffee varieties grown in Rwanda are bourbon. Rwanda, known as the "country of a thousand hills", has a high-altitude mountain environment, fertile volcanic soil and abundant precipitation, and has a climate conducive to the growth of coffee trees. The advantages of varieties and excellent natural conditions should have produced high-quality coffee, but why the quality of its coffee performance is not satisfactory? The reason lies in the later stage of processing. Improper handling will reduce the quality of coffee and sacrifice a lot of good flavor in vain. Harvesting, planting, treatment, grading, transportation and other links will directly affect the quality of raw coffee beans, in which the lack of control in a certain link will become a stumbling block to good coffee.

The coffee fruit needs to be transported to the processing plant as soon as possible after picking, but due to the lack of domestic facilities, it is unable to deal with the fruit at the first time. The fruits are piled up after being picked, which will continue to develop and accelerate mildew and decay due to lack of ventilation. Rotten fruits will affect the quality of coffee and show defective flavor.

In recent years, Rwanda has made great progress in the production and processing of coffee. First of all, coffee fruits are picked manually; coffee production cooperatives are set up all over the country to provide technical guidance to coffee farmers; coffee farmers send them to coffee processing stations for cleaning and screening as soon as possible after picking, and select mature and high-quality coffee fruits for processing.

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