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Burundi Ngozi Rama Women's Association Natural
$6.00 - $297.35
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Country: Burundi
Region: Ngozi
Farmer/Grower: 120+ female growers belong to the Rama Women's Association
Washing Station: Mubuga
Varieties: Red Bourbon
Processing: Natural
Altitude: 1660-1700 m.a.s.l.
Humidity: Coming Soon
Density: Coming Soon
Harvest Date: July, 2024
Arrival Date: March, 2024
Grade: Screen 15+
Marks: 027-0001-13159
SCA Cupping Score: 86.25
- Fragrance and aroma of florals and apricot, notes of chocolate and elderberry with an aftertaste of green apple and pomegranate. Nice citric and malic acidity with a juicy mouthfeel and medium-heavy body.
- This coffee does best when roasted light, where the acidity can pair with the sweetness to create complex fresh berry notes. At light roasts, the bright acidity shines through. When roasted darker, the bright berry notes will transform into cooked fruit flavors with diminished acidity.
The Rama Women’s Association spent years training in Good Agricultural Practices with Greenco and building savings.
By 2017, they planted their first model farm and diversified into coffee, beans, vegetables, and livestock. Their improved coffee cultivation techniques boosted yields from 0.7 kg to 2 kg per plant.
Marie-Annonciate mobilized women near the Mubuga washing station to fight for land rights, challenging Burundi’s patriarchal land laws.
Though legal ownership was denied, support from the Kahawatu Foundation and Greenco helped the Rama Women’s Association to secure a land lease from a local community member.
During harvest, members handpick coffee cherries and deliver them to Mubuga station, where Greenco ensures strict quality control through sorting, drying, and grading. Every batch is traceable and assessed by expert cuppers. Final milling at Budeca, Burundi’s largest dry mill, involves detailed hand sorting and UV checks to ensure zero defects. The mill employs about 10% of Gitega’s population during the season.
Many trees in Burundi are Red Bourbon. Because of the increasingly small size of coffee plantings, aging rootstock is a very big issue in Burundi. Many farmers have trees that are over 50 years old, but with small plots to farm, it is difficult to justify taking trees entirely out of production for the 3 to 4 years it will take for new plantings to begin to yield. In order to encourage farmers to renovate their plantings, Bugestal purchases seeds from the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi (ISABU), establishes nurseries and sells the seedlings to farmers at or below cost. At the washing station, farmers can also get organic fertilizer made from composted cherry pulp. Despite the ubiquity of coffee growing in Burundi, each smallholder produces a relatively small harvest. The average smallholder in Burundi has approximately 250 trees, normally in their backyards. Each tree yields an average of 1.5 kilos of cherry so the average producer sells about 200 to 300 kilos of cherry annually. During the harvest season, all coffee is selectively hand-picked. Most families have only 200 to 250 trees, and harvesting is done almost entirely by the Family.
Rama members selectively handpick cherry and deliver it to Mubuga washing station, where their cherry maintains traceability through the entire process. Quality assurance begins as soon the members deliver their cherry.
Cherry is wet processed under constant supervision. All cherry is floated in small buckets as a first step to check quality. After floating, the higher quality cherry is sorted again by hand to remove all damaged, underripe and overripe cherries.
Following sorting, cherry is then transported directly to the drying tables where it will dry slowly for 3 to 4 weeks. Cherry is laid out in a single layer. Pickers go over the drying cherry for damaged or defective cherry that may have been missed in previous quality checks. The station is very strict about allowing only the highest quality cherry to complete the drying process. Cherry is covered with tarps during periods of rain, the hottest part of the day and at night.
Once dry, the parchment is then bagged and taken to the warehouse. Greenco’s team of expert cuppers assess every lot (which are separated by station, day and quality) at the lab. The traceability of the station, day and quality is maintained throughout the entire Process. Before shipment, coffee is sent to Budeca, Burundi’s largest dry mill. The coffee is milled and then hand sorted by a team of hand-pickers who look closely at every single bean to ensure zero defects. It takes a team of two hand-pickers a full day to look over a single bag. UV lighting is also used on the beans and any bean that glows (which is usually an indication of a defect) is removed.