SCAA CUPPING SCORE 87.5
Lemon / Plum / Grape / Caramel
suggested for espresso and filter
PLEASE NOTE
We roast to order all coffees on Wednesday and Saturday, dispatching on next working day. Cut-off time is 8am UTC+1
Technical detail
Several farmers D.R.Congo
Producer Country
Kivu 1500-2000 mt
Region Elevation
Wet Kent & Bourbon
Pulping process Cultivar
September 14 February 15
Picked in Landed in
5600 kg GrainPro bag
Lot size Arrived in
Self-made
Rubens Gardelli drum roaster
Roast profile by Roasted on
THE STORY BEHIND
This coffee is grown in the north region of Kivu by plenty small holders, around the national park Virunga, just next to the lake of Kivu, between 1500-2000 masl. They have a very complex terroir, high altitude, good raining season, cloudy and face the lake.
The washing station of those coffees is called Kakondo, 35 km in the northwest of Bukavu. This is the place where cherries are processed (depulped, fermented, dried) and classified (they have the dry mill in the same place). The owner of the washing station, is called Kachungunu Safrai Aimé.
Producers are very small and are able to collect between 2 and 20 bags per year, depending on the quantity of bushes grown on their parcel. Normally they produce different agricultural products, not only coffees, including vegetables for their consumption and/or for selling at their nearest market. Coffee is handpicked & selective and culture is under shaded, and shade trees are wild ones.
In DR Congo, as in Rwanda & Burundi, coffees can be classify on two kinds of washed: "fully washed" and "washed". "Fully Washed" coffees are more qualitative than "washed" coffees, but are also rarer.
The washing stations buy their coffees in two ways:
- First, and the one that seems logical, to the farmers, the cherries that have just been harvested. They would be depulped and would follow a classical fermentation process. Beans are then washed and dry on African beds. Those coffees are called "fully washed".
- The second one, and unfortunately, most common, they buy coffees to middle-man persons, who buy cherries to small holders. They come to the farms so it is easier for farmers, the problem is that they would deliver/sell to the washing stating, until the moment that they have fill a truck or that are happy with the price of the market (so cherries can pass 2-3 days on bags before been delivered to the washing station). In this case, the washing station would receive the cherries, would take out the pulp as well as the mucilage at the same time, without fermenting. This, to shorten the process of a damaged cherry (probably fermented). Those coffees are called "washed".
Most of the time, containers sent to Europe are a mix of the two processes. This container, is the first ever done entirely on Fully Washed from the country!
We selected this lot on a blind cupping table for its clean and clear character, and when we discovered that was from Congo we were quite astonished...never tasted such a well-done wet process from this country!