FULLY WASHED BOURBON GAHARA

RWANDAWASHED

Sep 29

In Eastern Rwanda, around 200 members of the local cooperative farm a collective 80 hectares of clay rich land. Bourbon coffee trees are manually harvested, the cherries are then selected, placed in fermentation tanks and then sundried on raised African beds.

Korera Kawa Cooperative was created in 2011 to associate coffee producing families in Eastern Rwanda. The cooperative trains farmers in sustainability practices helping them to enhance productivity. In the 80 hectares dedicated to coffee production they only use natural pesticides and fertilizers to protect natural soil fertility. Various quality control steps are taken to guarantee this coffee quality. Cherries are manually picked and then are separated according to color and size. They are then placed in long tanks for cleaning purposes: during this phase only ripe cherries sink to the bottom, alloing for their selection. Remaining cherries, either too dry or unripe, are used as natural fertilizer for the plants. Once cleaned, the coffee beans are left in fermentation tanks between 12 to 18 hours and then dried on raised african beds. Then cherries undergo a final quality selection, for which the good beans are separated from broken and over-fermented ones.