Description

We’re happy to bring you a new gem from Rwanda. This coffee has come by way of Eric Wright, a long time friend of the Manhattan Coffee Roasters team who is working with communities in Rwanda to improve processing, harvesting and social impacts in the Ngororero region of Rwanda. About the practises they employ Eric says the following:

“In Ngororero, we work with approximately 500 farmers. They are scattered around the valley and hills. As such, we have 6 collection points. At each site we have a site collector as well as one or two of our coffee scouts. When farmers deliver their cherry, we float and then sort into quality A and B. Farmers receive a harvest and selection bonus for Cherry A (red, ripe), in an effort to encourage better practices, and reduce quantity of Cherry B (underripe, insect, disease, floaters).
Due to the farmers proximity to the processing station, we usually receive the cherries at the station between 7 and 10 pm. The bags are then separated by location and Cherry quality. Our quality manager usually has a good idea as to which farmers have delivered that day, and tries to identify high quality cherries. We then use those bags to do anaerobic, natural or honey processing.
We usually employ a high number of workers at our station, so that each lot gets enough attention. In Ngororero we experience rains throughout the day, so our team is covering and opening the dry beds depending on the weather and sun exposure.”

He went on to tell that they refer to the method as “uruhu” which in Kinyarwanda (the local language) means skin, as in skin contact anaerobic fermentation.The process itself is a 90 hours of anaerobic fermentation in a sealed airtight container, followed by a (quite lengthy) drying period of 34 days.

Manhattan Coffee Roasters writes: “This is likely one of the best expressions of Rwandan coffee we have tasted that’s in a modern style and we know you’re going to love it. On our table it’s tasting like mandarin, red gummy and white tea.”