a smooth cup on the nutty/chocolaty side, sweet tea flavors and a hint of citric. A little herbal spice lingers in the aftertaste but very mild comparatively to most Africans.
This lot comes from the Jarama Coffee Washing Station (CWS), one of two processing sites the Kivubelt company operates. Cyiya is a small community with a high elevation and distinct forest influence that contribute great potential to the coffee. Thanks to the farmers making the most of this potential, Cyiya’s coffee is annually among the top lots processed by the Jarama CWS.
Kivubelt was established in 2011 by Furaha Umwizey, after returning to Rwanda with a master’s degree in economics from Switzerland. Born and raised in Rwanda, Umwizey’s goal with Kivubelt is to create a model coffee plantation, as sustainable in agriculture as it is impactful in local employment and empowerment. The company began with 200 scattered acres of farmland in Gihombo, a community in Rwanda’s coffee-famous Nyamasheke district that runs along the breathtaking central shoreline of Lake Kivu.
Under Umwizey’s leadership, Kivubelt has planted 90,000 coffee trees on their estates, which now employ more than 400 people during harvest months and is a kind of coffee vocational school for local smallholders interested in improving their farming. Kivubelt has also acquired two washing stations, Murundo and Jarama, which combined not only process coffee from the company’s estates, but also that of more than 500 smallholders in the region, offering quality premiums and training programs for participating farming families.
This lot from Jarama CWS was picked across March, April, and May by the station’s participating 100 local smallholders from Cyiya. Cyiya sits inland from the lake on the outskirts of Nyungwe National Forest Park, a rainforest preserve known for its gorillas, virgin canopy, and chilly, oxygen-abundant biosphere. Because Cyiya’s coffee tends to perform so well, contributing farms regularly receive 50% over the local market price for their cherry.
- Origin: Rwanda
- Region: Nyamasheke
- Producer: Furaha Umwizey, Kivubelt
- Washing station: Jarama Coffee Washing Station
- Altitude: 1870-2000m
- Cultivar: Bourbon
- Processing: Washed
- Sourcing: Burman Coffee