Ikawa House

Founded by Laetitia Mukandahiro and Uzziel Habimana, Ikawa House are coffee producers, consultants and exporters. As two of Rwanda’s most experienced coffee professionals, Laetitia and Uzziel established Ikawa House with the goal of elevating the quality of the country’s coffee and propelling the local specialty industry forward.

Published 18 Sep 2026

After spending 15 years working for local cooperatives and coffee businesses, Laetitia and Uzziel founded Ikawa House as a consulting agency. Initially, the company partnered with Rwandan producers who wanted to better their cup scores to earn higher prices in the international market. While Uzziel focused on teaching improved processing practices (including experimental anaerobic and natural lots), Laetitia taught producers how these techniques affected quality on the cupping table.

On their first harvest, producers realised their coffees were receiving much higher cup scores than expected — in some instances, going from the low 80s to 87s and 88s. Seeing the opportunity this provided, they went back to Laetitia and Uzziel, who had built strong relationships with international buyers in the US, Canada and Europe, and asked them to offer them coffees on their behalf. As Laetitia told us, “That’s when our second business idea came…” and soon Ikawa House also became an exporting company.

With such impressive results, Laetitia and Uzziel decided to plant their own farm and build a wet mill in Rwanda’s Western Province, to use as a model plot and to train more producers to improve the quality of their coffee through processing. Initially, Ruronzi farm was planted with 4,000 coffee trees — but once buyers tasted its production, demand quickly increased. Today, the farm includes 18,000 trees (with the goal of reaching 25,000), mostly of the Red Bourbon variety, but also including others like Mibirizi, Batian and Gesha.

While Laetitia and Uzziel are committed to using their experience for the benefit of the country’s coffee industry, they also acknowledge hard work must be done to improve. Producers interested in working with Ikawa House must agree to follow their processing advice to a tee. Uzziel visits their partners regularly, to ensure everyone has the necessary tools and knowledge to do so. In return, Ikawa House work hard at ensuring their partners receive the best prices they can, with full transparency and traceability made available to both buyers and sellers.

In recent years, as Rwanda’s coffee consumption has grown, Ikawa House have also expanded to include a roasting operation to supply quality-focused cafes, hotels and offices. They also offer classes for baristas and coffee enthusiasts to improve their brewing, roasting and cupping skills, with the hopes that it will continue bolstering the local specialty industry and strengthening the country’s professionals.