Elie Nzabakunda
Vibrant and complex with a silky body. Raspberry, grape and rose tea.
On our most recent visit to Rwanda, farmer Elie Nzabakunda welcomed us into his home with the warmth of a close friend by greeting us with a hug and telling us, “It is a pleasure to meet the people who buy our coffee!” Not only were we grateful for his hospitality, but also impressed by the quality of his coffee and the farming practices employed at his property.
Elie grew up in the region surrounding Dukunde Kawa’s Ruli washing station, and was inspired by his father and the neighbouring community elders who also grew coffee. To Elie, it was evident the crop was the region’s economic driver, as he noticed farmers were able to build homes and expand their properties. After his parents gifted him a parcel of land with 500 coffee trees, Elie committed to growing the crop and has slowly been able to increase his land and income.
Today, Elie owns 1,000 coffee trees across four plots — and his parents continue to grow coffee at their own nearby property. His journey as a farmer has been supported by Dukunde Kawa Cooperative, which Elie joined in 2004. At the time, he was 24 years old and unmarried; more than two decades later, he lives at his farm with his wife and three children. The cooperative have provided him with the training and agronomy support needed to produce exceptional coffee cherries.
When we visited his home, we could see tall banana and coffee trees hanging over the brick fence, looking incredibly healthy. On the property, the family also grow beans, potatos and sweet potatoes — both for their own consumption and to sell at the local market. Elie also has a strict pruning schedule and ensures his trees receive adequate nutrition and plentiful mulching.
Elie has worked as a site collector for Dukunde Kawa Cooperative since 2004. In this role, he assists the co-op by delivering coffee from neighbouring farmers and members with the help of a small team. He also delivers his own crop to Ruli washing station, where he receives a fair and competitive price for his crop. Through the cooperative, Elie and his family received a cow, which he describes as being “a game changer economically.” This is because he now uses the manure to make organic fertiliser, which has improved his yields, and also because he can sell the cow’s milk to Dukunde Kawa. Elie’s goal is to eventually farm completely organically, which he is currently transitioning to.
When we visited Elie, he was very happy to tell us of the ways coffee has improved his life, sharing he had been able to, “educate my kids, expand my farm and receive economic gain.” When we mentioned we would be marketing his coffee as a single estate lot, Elie was ecstatic. As he put it, “It is a great prividlege to sell my coffee as individual coffee producer and sell it in my name […] We are very happy for this and our commitment is there to expand each year.”
ABOUT RULI WASHING STATION
Ruli washing station was the first site established by Dukunde Kawa, back in 2003. It remains the main centre of operations for all of the cooperative’s activities, serving as the head office for the cooperative’s management team, who can often be seen buzzing about the property during the harvest.
In addition, the site is home to the Rambagirakawa Women Alliance’s community building and the newly-built Musasa Early Childhood Development Centre (Musasa ECDC), along with Dukunde Kawa’s cupping lab, nursery and model farm. Recently, the cooperative decided to expand their business by establishing a commercial roastery at Ruli, that supplies coffee to restaurants and hotels across town. Because the washing station is so central, Dukunde Kawa have also opened a café here, which sells the co-op’s coffee and locally baked goods. Recognising it has potential to service many members of the community, the cooperative is also hoping to establish their own bakery, to be run by youth who are part of the co-op.
Ruli is also where Dukunde Kawa’s dairy is located. Over the years, Dukunde Kawa have provided many of their member farmers access to their own cows, which are an important asset to a farming family. Culturally, they are seen as a symbol of wealth and status in Rwanda; practically, they provide milk and yoghurt to feed the family, produce excellent manure for the coffee farms, and create an opportunity for additional income. Having recently upgraded their largest pasteuriser from a 500L machine to one that can process 5,000L, Dukunde Kawa have been able to expand their operations at the dairy factory and take on a contract with a distributor who works throughout all of Rwanda and its neighbouring countries.
Over 2,000 farmers deliver cherry to the washing station throughout the season. Quality control at Ruli is overseen by Emerthe Mukamurigo, who has held this position since 2014, while day to day operations are managed by Philomene Nyirabantu, who has been a co-op member and part of Ruli’s full-time staff since 2004. In the twenty years she has been employed by the cooperative, Philomene has worked both as a drying officer at Ruli and as a field officer (she completed her studies as an agronomist in 2011), supporting member farmers in improving the quality and volume of their crop. Since 2022, Philomene has managed production at Ruli, earning the title of Station Manager in 2025.
During the harvest, Philomene is assisted by Dative Niyifasha, who supervises sorting and drying. There are a whopping 250 drying beds at Ruli, which require constant oversight. Dative has also been a cooperative and staff member since 2004, having transitioned from working with farmers on the field in 2017 to become a drying officer at Ruli. Both Philomene and Dative deliver coffee to be processed at Ruli and are members of the Rambagirakawa Women’s Alliance (Dative’s youngest is also a student at Musasa ECDC). The pair manage Ruli’s team with positivity and confidence — the pace at a processing site of this size can be relentless during the peak of the harvest — relying on their two decades of experience with Dukunde Kawa to continually encourage the washing station’s staff.
Ruli is Rainforest Alliance certified, UTZ certified, and Fair Trade certified. These certifications help the growing cooperative find different markets for the coffee. “We were already doing a lot of the things that were required for these certifications”, Isaac (the executive secretary of the cooperative at the time) explained, “We are always trying to be the best cooperative we can be. Getting the certifications has helped highlight what we are doing well and helped us raise our standards in other areas.”
Head here to learn more about the work of Dukunde Kawa in Rwanda.
PROCESSING AT RULI WASHING STATION
The team at Dukunde Kawa takes a huge amount of care in processing its coffee. All members of the cooperative are trained to only select ripe coffee cherries from their trees.
- On delivery, the cherries are inspected and sorted by hand to ensure only the very ripest cherries are processed. Farmers do the selecting, and receive the highest income from the ripest, healthier fruit. The remainder of their crop still gets purchased by the co-op, at a lower price, to be processed and sold for the internal market.
- Cherry is then sorted by weight using a Pinhalense machine, with any floaters are removed. By using a machine, rather than a clerk, Dukunde Kawa are more transparent with contributing growers about which fruit gets processed. Coffee is then depulped using a mechanical pulper that divides the beans into three grades by weight, with the heaviest, A1, usually having the highest cup quality.
- After pulping, the coffee is pre-washed, graded again using floatation channels that sort the coffee by weight, and left to ferment overnight for around 12–18 hours. The following day, wet parchment is the washed a second time and left to ferment for a further six hours — with the goal of removing as much mucilage as possible without using machinery that may accidentally crush or damage the beans.
- 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 ‘wet sorted’ under shade for four hours. The idea is that greens (unripe beans) are still visible when the beans 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 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 11-12% humidity, the coffee is then transported to Dukunde Kawa’s purpose-built warehouse prior to final dry milling and hand sorting at the cooperative’s milling facilities.
- Located in Ruli, Dukunde Kawa’s dry mill has the capacity to process one full container of coffee a day — and combines the use of technology with meticulous hand sorting to ensure only the best beans are bagged. Before being loaded for export, Rwanda’s National Agricultural Export Development Board also inspects and samples the prepped parchment.
WHY WE LOVE IT
Most of the coffees we source from Rwanda are traceable back to a washing station, or sometimes a farmer group, so we feel extremely fortunate to be able to share this special lot from Elie Nzabakunda thanks to the work of Dukunde Kawa. Washing stations in Rwanda receive cherry from hundreds (and sometimes thousands) of farmers who own very small plots of land – on average less than a quarter hectare, with just 300-600 coffee trees. Separation of such tiny lots is expensive and impractical, so the large majority of coffees are processed as a mixed lot from multiple producers. Typically, lots are separated as day lots (ie. cherries that were all picked on the same day) rather than by a single farm or producer group.
Single producer microlots like this one are not very common in Rwanda. In this case, it is made possible due to the size of Elie’s farm, which slightly bigger than the regional average. Elie also benefits from being a member of the Dukunde Kawa Cooperative, who have recognised the excellent agronomical practices he follows and consider him a role model to neighbouring farmers. Because the co-op also operate their own dry mill, they can process smaller lots individually, whilst minimising cost and maintaining excellent quality standards. We hope to continue buying his coffee in the years to come, because we love its vibrant acidity, silky body and notes of raspberry, grape and rose tea.
