Rwanda
Gatare
250g
QUALITY SCORE: 88.25
Cup Notes
Blackberry / Candied Lemon / Mango / Baking Spices / Caramel
Suggested for espresso and filter
when we roast
We freshly roast to order all coffees on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (excluding national holidays), and ship the same day! Cut-off time is 11:59pm (UTC+1) of the day before the roast day. *We only ship whole beans*
Details
- Quality Score
- 88.25
- Producer
- Several Small Farmers
- Country
- Rwanda
- Terroir
- Nyamasheke
- Altitude
- 1800 mt
- Process
- Classic natural
- Arabica cultivar
- Red Bourbon
- Picked in
- June 2020
- Arrived in
- January 2021
- Shipped in
- Jute + GrainPro
- Roast profile by
- Rubens Gardelli
- Roasted on
- Customised solid-drum roaster
THE STORY BEHIND
Gatare is one the oldest washing stations in the country, operating since 2003. Gatare has a long reputation having been among the first stations to process top-quality coffee for export. With lush hills, covered in coffee trees, all around it, the station is L
located in Nyamasheke district of the Western province. Gatare has participated in the Cup Of Excellence competition many times, and the lots from the station have consistently scored high in qualifications.
Rwanda is distinguished by ideal coffee-growing conditions: high altitude, regular rainfall, volcanic soils with good organic structure. The vast majority of Rwandan coffee is produced by smallholders: there are around half a million farmers with parcels of land often not much larger than just one hectare per family. Coffee is grown in most parts of the country, while the area surrounding Lake Kivu and the southern province are the most intense coffee-producing regions. Rwandan smallholders organise themselves into cooperatives and share the services of centralised wet-mills – or washing stations, as they are known locally.
THE VARIETY
Bourbon is a considerably old variety, but it spread most in the middle of the XIX century, when it was brought from the island of Reunion - then Bourbon - where it originally evolved, to Brazil. The Brazilian government arranged the transfer of seeds, as Bourbon was discovered to yield larger harvests and higher quality than Typica. Now that the Yellow Bourbon variety exists, the original Bourbon is referred to as Red Bourbon.
THE FERMENTATION PROCESS
Dry process seems simple: pick the fruit, lay it out in the sun until it turns from red to brown to near-black, and then hull off the thick, dried outer layer in one step to reveal the green bean. It is a method suited to arid regions, where the sun and heat can dry the seed inside the intact fruit skin.
It's often referred to as "natural coffee" because of its simplicity, and because the fruit remains intact and undisturbed, a bit like drying grapes into raisins. Since it requires minimal investment, the dry process method is a default to create cheap commodity-grade coffee in areas that have the right climate capable of drying the fruit and seed.
But it’s a fail in humid or wet regions. If the drying isn't progressing fast enough, the fruit degrades, rots or gets covered with mould.
Dry-processed coffees can also be wildly inconsistent. If you want a cleanly-fruited, sweet, intense cup, dry process (DP) takes more hand labor than wet process. Even the most careful pickers will take green unripe or semi-ripe coffee off the branch as they pick red, ripe cherry. If these are not removed in the first days of drying, the green turns to brown that is hard to distinguish from the ripe fruit.
MORE INFO
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