Rwanda - Fugi Ikizere

Hello! 

We have our first coffee from Rwanda! 

Rwanda has been Paul's one of favorite region with its unique red floral, small berry notes and vibrant acidity. So when we started Neem, one of the first thing we did was to reach out to Sundog Coffee. 

This Red Bourbon reminded us of tons of red, orange fruit like apple, apricot and pomegranate. As cools down, it turns into straight apple juice which we were really fan of, imagine drinking a cup of apple/ apricot juice with pomegranate acidity sprinkled on top.

This coffee underwent slightly tweaked washed processing. 

It started with 8hr in-cherry fermentation and de-pulped. 
After that went through Rwanda's unique drying stage called 'skin drying' for 12-72hrs on the shaded beds. What happens is that it goes through drying phase more gently and slowly because of shades which helps producers to do more rigorous sorting while drying. It is a critical step because during this sorting with parchment being wet, it is easy to spot certain defects which thought to cause 'potato defects.'

*Little about potato defects, it has nothing to do with actual root vegetable, but it just smells and tastes like raw potatoes.
There was a period of time when coffee buyers avoided buying from Rwanda, Burundi and DRC because of this defect. It is to this day, not yet known what actually causes this defect. Baho Coffee, the exporting company from Rwanda, has implemented multiple stages of hand sorting during process to eliminate this defect and because of their hard work, the frequency is very rare.
But we recommend smelling the grounds after every grinding to make sure it doesn't smell like potato. If it does, purge the grinder and dose another round of coffee. 

We highly recommend resting it for at least three weeks.

Our brew guide will be up on Instagram(@neemcoffeeproject) soon, so be sure to check it out!

Information

• Producer : 115 smallholders
• Processing : Washed
• Variety : Red Bourbon 
• Region : Nyaruguru District, Southern Province
• Country : Rwanda
• Importing partner : Exporter- Baho coffee, Importer- Sundog coffee