Rwanda Vunga

Bourbon is one of the most widely known and oldest varietals of Arabica. The varietal was introduced to and named after the island of Bourbon (now known as Reunion Island) by French missionaries from Yemen in the early 1700s. It spread through Africa and the Americas in the mid 1800s. Many varietals today have a lineage tied to the Bourbon varietal. Bourbon is known to have great cup quality but has medium-low volume per-plant production and is susceptible to all of the major coffee diseases.

Bourbon can produce various color cherries - red, orange, yellow, purple - with red being the most common. The famous, but misnamed, "pink bourbon" of Colombia is not a bourbon at all but rather a cross of Ethiopian Landrace and Colombian hybrids.

This coffee is washed using the double fermentation process typical in East Africa. After the coffee cherries are delivered to the mill, they are floated in clean water to separate the less dense (damaged, unripe and overripe) cherries from the ripe. After floating, the cherries are then depulped and are dry-ferementd in open air tanks for 12-24 hours.

After the initial fermentation is complete, the seeds are washed and gravity sorted using washing channels. The dense seeds are then soaked in clean water in fermentation tanks for 24-48 hours.

After soaking, the coffee is moved to shaded, raised beds where it is then sorted again to remove any remaining defects.

After the initial shade drying the coffee is then moved to raised beds in the sun where it dries to 11% moisture before being sent to the dry mill for additional grading, sorting and preparation for export.

Rwanda is perfectly situated to produce world class coffees and this has shown in the coffee that we have sourced from the country the past few years. The flavor profile reminds us of a cross between Kenyan and Ethiopian coffees typically with a creamy body, vibrant, juicy acidity (typically more balanced that that of the typical Kenyan flavor profile) and strong citrus, floral and spiced aromas typically complemented by black tea and bergamot notes. The balance that the Rwandan flavor profile shows in the cup is reminiscent of the best Central American coffees.

Rwandan coffee is grown primarily in red volcanic soil on very small farms situated at high altitudes typically ranging between 1700 and 2000 meters above sea level. Due to the small farm size, the vast majority of coffees are not processed by the grower but rather cherries are delivered to washing stations where they are they are cooperatively processed based on the quality of the delivery.