Cyarumbo Women’s Coffee
Rich and sweet, with blood orange, raspberry and golden sultana. Dark chocolate and black tea on the finish.
This special micro-lot was produced by 274 female farmers who own and grow coffee on small farms in the hills surrounding Cyarumbo washing station, in Rwanda’s Southern Province. The women are members of six of the twenty-two collectives that fall under the Abizerwa Women’s Group umbrella, that are organised within the Abahuzamugambi Ba Kawa Maraba Cooperative (or ‘Maraba’). In the local Kinyarwanda language, Abizerwa means “trusted people” – a fitting name for the group, given how much the members share support and resources with each other.
To distinguish their coffee and ensure it is processed separately, the women have organised to deliver cherry to the washing station on certain days of the week. Selling their coffee as a separate lot allows the women to directly benefit from any higher prices paid specifically for their coffees (rather than these profits being shared equally amongst all members) and results in a higher income to support their families. This creates an effective incentive for the women to work as a collective towards achieving the very best quality, and we think the results are evident in the complex and clean cup profile of these coffees!
Maraba Cooperative has consistently been recognised for quality, including numerous Cup of Excellence awards in 2008, 2011, 2012, 2013, and 2015 – no small accomplishment! This year’s lots are representative of the exceptional quality that this cooperative can produce, which is in part due to their continued reinvestment in infrastructure and training. The coop recently upgraded cherry sorting equipment and a water treatment facilities at each of their washing stations. They have also constructed a warehouse, where the coffee is safely stored before being transported to Kigali for final stages of milling and preparation for export.
Head here to learn more about the work of Maraba Cooperative.
ABOUT CYARUMBO WASHING STATION
Founded in 2001, Maraba Cyarumbo was Rwanda’s first washing station. Prior to Cyarumbo being built, Rwandan farmers only produced sun-dried natural coffees with very few protocols for quality control. Transparency along the supply chain was non-existent, and farmers had no access to the international market. Set up as a model operation, workers at Cyarumbo were key in showcasing the best practices needed to maximise quality potential to the country’s ailing coffee industry. To say they were successful at this is an understatement, as Rwanda has gone to open over 300 washing stations since then!
Cyarumbo is located in the Huye District of Rwanda’s Southern Province and sits at an elevation of 1,700 meters above sea level. The washing station services 568 members of the cooperative, who grow coffee locally – some with farms as high as 2,200 meters above sea level. The area has ideal growing conditions for high-quality coffee, with high elevations, good rainfall and steady temperatures year-round. Day to day operations are overseen by the station manager, Christian Ruzigama, while Christine Ilibagiza serves as head of QC. A total of five permanent staff and 115 seasonal workers are employed by the washing station – most of whom are women.
PROCESSING AT CYARUMBO WASHING STATION
The team at Cyarumbo Washing Station take a huge amount of care in sorting and processing their coffee. They own their own dry mill which enables them to control quality all the way through to export.
- Cherries are delivered to the washing station on the same day as they are picked and are inspected and sorted to ensure only the very ripest cherries are processed. They are then put into a floatation tank and sorted by weight (and any floaters removed) and pulped on the same day—almost always in the evening—using a mechanical pulper that divides the beans by weight (the heaviest usually being the best).
- After pulping, the coffee is fermented overnight for around 12–18 hours and then graded again using floatation channels that sort the coffee by weight. The beans are then soaked for a further 24 hours before being moved to raised screens for ‘wet-sorting’ by hand. All water used during the processing comes from a natural spring with water from the mountains.
- As with most washing stations in Rwanda, women do the majority of hand-sorting. This takes place in two stages—on the covered pre-drying tables and on the drying tables. Washed beans are moved from the wet fermentation tanks onto the pre-drying tables, where they are intensively sorted under shade for around six hours. The idea is that green (unripe) beans are still visible when they are damp, while the roofs over the tables protect the beans from the direct sunlight.
- Next, the beans are moved onto the washing station’s extensive raised drying tables (‘African Beds’) for around two weeks, where they are sorted again for defects, turned regularly and protected from rain and the midday sun by covers, ensuring both even drying and the removal of any damaged or defective beans. During this period, the coffee is also turned several times a day by hand to ensure the coffee dries evenly and consistently.
- After reaching 11% humidity, the coffee is stored in parchment and then when adequately rested it is carefully dry milled at the cooperative’s brand new dry mill in Huye.
WHY WE LOVE IT
Coffees from Huye District are characterised by heavy sweetness and juicy character. We’re excited to purchase coffee from the Abizerwa Women’s Group for a second year in a row and to support the farmers who contribute to the Cyarumbo Washing Station. We love this coffee for its great structure and depth, with intense sweetness and grilled peach in the cup.
