Notes: Malt - Dark sugar - Dates
Altitude: 2200 meters above sea level
Varietal: Red Bourbon
Process: Fully Washed
This special lot of coffee was produced entirely by women, primarily widows due to the genocide that occurred in Rwanda in the 1990s, as part of Musasa Dukundekawa’s efforts to improve the livelihood of some of rural Rwanda’s most vulnerable populations.
The program involves women from the Rambagira Kawa Women's Group: made up of 310 women from the Dukunde Kawa Musasa Cooperative. The women process their coffee separately, and the additional income is used directly to support them in fulfilling their responsibilities as family leaders. This enables them to begin improving not only their own lives but also that of their children and extended family. It also connotes a new status for many, who have not traditionally been seen as viable financial contributors to
their community. This specific lot is comprised of coffee from 50 women.
Ruli – the cooperative’s first washing station - was built by the co-op in 2003 with a development loan from the Rwandan government and the support of the USAID-financed PEARL project. Mbilima – the cooperative’s second washing station - was built by the co-op in 2005 with profits earned from their first washing station, Ruli, constructed only two years prior.
Respectively, constructed at 1,999 metres and 2,020 metres above sea level, they are some of Rwanda’s highest washing stations.
The transformational PEARL programme of which it was a part switched the focus in the Rwandan coffee sector from an historic emphasis on quantity to one of quality, thus opening Rwanda up to the much more highly-valued specialty coffee market.
The programme and its successor, SPREAD, have been invaluable in
helping Rwanda’s small-scale coffee farmers to rebuild their production in the wake of the devastating 1994 genocide and the 1990s world coffee crash.
