Burundi Muyinga Kavugangoma

About Burundi Muyinga Kavugangoma

Arrived July 2022, new crop, in grainpro.  This is our first offering (October 2022).

After cupping a group of pre-ship Burundi samples in late Spring we decided to buy two lots this being the second of them to be offered.  Only a small quantity was available. 

Burundi Muyinga Kavugangoma #2121 is produced by small farm holders of the Muyinga Province, which is one of 18 different provinces in the nation of Burundi. The number 2121 refers to the lot number processed by the Kavugangoma wash station. It is fully washed, double fermented, sun dried on raised beds for a period of 12-18 days and dry milled in the nearby province of Ngozi. The cup has good acidity and a creamy body with notes of coconut, chocolate, raspberry and vanilla. For our cupping we roasted this Burundi Muyinga Kavugangoma slightly lighter, providing balanced acidity and an overall great taste with a medium body.

The farms and farmers of our Burundi Muyinga Kavugangoma are quite small, averaging just around one and a quarter acres apiece. Some farmers have 50-100 trees, but many others have more like 10 or 20; very few have enough space for several hundred trees. One factor for small farmers with less than one hundred coffee trees is the understandable reluctance to stump (or cut back) trees that may be suffering from a degenerative health condition. At such small numbers each tree is incredibly vital to overall volume. The soil on these Burundi Muyinga Kavugangoma farms is a volcanic type that contains a mineral-rich mix of nutrients well-suited for arabica coffee production.

Richard Kaderi started building the Kavugangoma Washing station in February 2008 to a large need in the province where he was raised and where his grandfather introduced coffee in 1932. Local farmers, until then, reported walking 10 to 20 miles to the nearest washing station to sell their coffee cherries, and then wait up to 12 hours in a line once there.  In addition, there were dangers.  He started building this washing stations in the North-East of Burundi at his birth place in Muyinga Province exactly Mwakiro commune. The washing station is located on the Kavugangoma hill, which means the sound of the drums. In the Burundi tradition all the drums were made from a tree called Umuvugangoma, a type planted in the area. The station took 4 years to complete.  

The nation of Burundi is located directly south of Rwanda and shares a majority of its eastern border with Tanzania. Coffee was first introduced here by the Belgians in the 1930s. For a country where approximately 90% of the population relies on farming for a living, coffee and tea have remained the top two respective cash crops for generations. Today there are roughly 600,000 individual coffee farmers, whose combined export volume accounts for 60% of overall export earnings.

The vast majority of Burundi's coffee producers are small farm holders who manage an average of 200 trees apiece on single, 1-acre plots or smaller. These producers are responsible for growing and harvesting their own lot of cherries which are in turn sold to either privately-run or government owned wash stations called SOGESTALS.

In order to best serve Burundi's coffee sector and oversee its sustainable development, InerCafe Burundi was founded in 2010 as a professional, non-profit association of stakeholders. Their board of directors is tasked with a number of essential duties including farm-to-market traceability, promotion, quality control, producer arbitrage and international partnering to name a few. To ensure equal representation, their 13 member board is staffed by professionals from each sector - wet milling, dry milling, exporting and roasting.

• Country: Burundi
• Producer: Small Farm Holders
• Region: Muyinga
• Altitude: 1650-2100 meters
• Varietal: Red Bourbon
• Harvest: April-June
• Processing: Washed/Sun dried
• Moisture: ( 10.9%) Density: (0.74g/ml)

Cup Characteristics:  Aromas of milk chocolate, florals, and coconut. Flavors of chocolate, raspberries, and vanilla. A bright, refined and full bodied cup with a pleasant acidity.

Roasting Notes: Bourbon coffees tend to be sturdy and dense, and as such can be roasted to most levels. Our personal preference is to pull at the very start of 2nd Crack; at this level some high notes are present while the chocolate elements of the coffee are well defined.