Floral apple with raspberry iced tea and milk chocolate.

Category - Easy Going

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Origin - Rwanda
Washing Station - Nyamyumba
Producer - 1,410 + small holder farmers
Region - Western Province
Varietal - Bourbon
Process - Washed

Import Partner - Mountain Coffee

Nyamyumba Washing Station was built in 2006 to process coffees grown in the nutrient-rich volcanic clay soils along the high-altitude hills of the Congo Nile Trail. Nyamyumba Station features picturesque rolling hills overlooking the clear waters of Lake Kivu. Nyamyumba’s beauty can partly be attributed to the surrounding Gishwati National Forest.

Nyamyumba has the capacity to process up to 496 tons of cherry annually. The producers, members of a cooperative, cultivate an average of 400 trees at 1,500 to 2,000 meters above sea level. Producers selectively handpick the cherries to ensure ripeness and quality and station employees float and handsort the delivered cherries in order to remove any visible defects or low-density beans.

The cherries are then pulped and wet fermented for 24 hours to remove the remaining mucilage. After fermentation is complete, parchment is sent through grading canals to separate into three levels of density (A1, A2 & A3). Parchment is then soaked for an average of 20 hours to improve quality and shelf life and to remove any remaining mucilage.

After washing, parchment is removed from the water and delivered to pre-drying tables to be sorted by hand. Defects are often easier to catch when the parchment is still wet, so this stage of sorting is essential. After sorting, parchment is laid on tables to sundry where it is also consistently sorted to remove any remaining defects.

The beans that remain offer a tantalizing combination of lovely florals and tea like qualities, with juicy raspberry and a rich chocolate finish. This washed Rwandan would work as a lovely pour over or filter coffee, highlighting the red fruit, tea, and florals, or as a raspberry and chocolate espresso.