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Uganda - The Coffee Yards - Washed Process

Uganda - The Coffee Yards - Washed Process

An elegant honeysuckle aroma opens the cup, followed by fig-like sweetness and citrus-toned brightness. A savory-sweet note of butterscotch rounds out the finish.

 

 

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Technical Information

Producer: Small-holder producers - The Coffee Yards

Region: Mbale, Mt. Elgon, Uganda

Harvest: November - February

Varietal(s): SL-14, SL-28, Nyasaland

Process: Fully Washed

Altitude: 1400-2000 masl

Sourcing Partner: Crop to Cup

Agrton Gourmet Color: 100 (light)

Roasters Cupping Score: 87.5

Coffee Story

Uganda’s Mt. Elgon rises along the country’s eastern border with Kenya and is home to one of its two primary Arabica-growing regions. Coffee is grown across the mountain’s western slopes, often on very small farms with only a few dozen to a few hundred trees. This lot brings together coffee from roughly 300 registered producers working with four community collection stations at elevations ranging from 1,400 to 2,000 meters.

The Coffee Yards was founded by Norman Mukuru, an agronomist and agronomical engineer who has spent much of his career working with coffee in Uganda. After developing collection and processing operations for a large regional exporter, Norman established his own processing facility outside Mbale at the base of Mt. Elgon. The idea was to create a central place where coffees coming down from the mountain could be dried and processed with greater consistency and attention to quality.

That model has continued to evolve. Today, The Coffee Yards purchases coffee through a network of community stations, allowing Norman and his team to work directly with producers while taking greater control over processing after the coffee leaves the farm. For this Elgon Reserve lot, SL14, SL28, and Nyasaland varieties are pulped and pre-fermented in water at the farm before being delivered to the yard. Fermentation is then managed and extended before the coffee is drip dried and gradually finished on raised beds and tarps.

Centralizing these later stages of processing is particularly important in a region where coffee comes from hundreds of small farms. Individual producers may contribute relatively small amounts of coffee, making consistency difficult at scale. The Coffee Yards provides the infrastructure to separate lots, manage fermentation and drying, and build more traceable coffees from the communities it works with across Mt. Elgon.

Varietal

SL-14 and SL-28 are varieties selected by Scott Agricultural Laboratories in Kenya during the early twentieth century. Both were developed with productivity, drought tolerance and cup quality in mind. SL-28 became particularly well known for its exceptional quality potential and remains widely planted in Kenya and neighboring countries, while SL-14 is less common but has maintained a presence in Uganda, particularly around Mt. Elgon.

Nyasaland takes its name from the former name of present-day Malawi, where the variety has historical roots. It spread through parts of East Africa and became established in Uganda alongside other regional varieties. Today, Nyasaland, SL-14 and SL-28 are often found growing together on small farms around Mt. Elgon, reflecting generations of coffee movement and selection across the region.

Process

This coffee uses a washed process with fermentation occurring in two stages. After harvest, the cherries are pulped on-farm and the coffee undergoes an initial fermentation in water. The partially fermented parchment is then transported to The Coffee Yards, where the fermentation is continued for an extended period. This second stage allows the team at The Coffee Yards to manage the completion of fermentation centrally rather than leaving the entire process in the hands of hundreds of individual producers.

Once fermentation is complete, the coffee is drip-dried before being spread on raised beds and tarps for a gradual final drying. Bringing the later stages of fermentation and drying to The Coffee Yards provides greater control and consistency across coffees collected from many small farms around Mt. Elgon.

Terroir

Mbale sits at the base of Mt. Elgon in eastern Uganda, near the border with Kenya. The farms surrounding the city climb the mountain’s western slopes into the Bugisu highlands, where Arabica is grown at elevations that commonly reach well above 1,500 meters. Mt. Elgon is an ancient volcanic mountain, and its deep volcanic soils, reliable rainfall and cooler temperatures at elevation create favorable conditions for slow cherry development and high-density coffees.

Uganda is one of Africa’s largest coffee-producing countries, though the majority of its production is Robusta grown at lower elevations. Arabica represents a much smaller share and is concentrated primarily in the country’s mountainous regions, with Mt. Elgon its most important eastern growing area. Around Mbale, coffee is produced largely by smallholder farmers on steep, intensively cultivated slopes, often alongside bananas and other crops. The combination of elevation, volcanic soils and a cool highland climate has helped establish Mt. Elgon as one of Uganda’s most recognized regions for washed Arabica.