Our featured coffee of the month for May is a washed coffee from the Dukunde Kawa cooperative in northern Rwanda. This coffee is balanced and consistent with very little acidity and a medium body. The cup starts with sweet notes of cherry cola and chocolate nougat. As the cola notes fade into the middle of the cup, notes of roasted peanut meld wonderfully with the chocolate sweetness. The finish is long and chocolatey with more muted notes of peanut and cola lingering into the finish. 

Roast Color: Medium-Dark

Cupping Notes: Roasted Peanut, Chocolate Nougat, Cherry Cola

About the coffee of the month: We feature a new coffee every month. This allows us to explore more of the world of coffee outside of our normal offerings. It is available this month only, while supplies last. 

Story: Dukunde Kawa is a well-known producer group in Rwanda, as much for exceptionally bright and memorable coffees as for its exceptional business structure. The cooperative has over 2,000 farmer members and 4 washing stations in the Gakenke District north of Kigali. Ruli is one of these stations. Ruli was established by Dukunde Kawa in 2004 and originally served 300 local coffee farmers. Today there are over 800 contributing farmers and Ruli is Dukunde Kawa’s largest station. This is one of the highest elevations that Dukunde Kawa serves, with farms passing 2100 meters. Ruli itself sits at 2100 meters, making it one of the highest washing stations in the country. Producer groups like Dukunde Kawa cherish their farmers’ potential and are learning to maximize the quality and variety available from Rwanda’s most promising terroirs.

Processing at Ruli includes cherry sorting by the farmers themselves upon delivery. Cherry is depulped and the fresh parchment is graded immediately by flotation in a short channel. Fermentation usually lasts 18 hours and is completed without water. Once the dry fermentation is complete the parchment is soaked in fresh water between 18-24 hours to halt fermentation and the stabilize moisture content of the batch. After the soak the parchment is washed once again, this time in grading channels—long shallow concrete channels with water flowing through—which allows the parchment to naturally separate by density. From here, each separate density grade is moved to pre-drying tables to be hand-sorted for imperfections and gently dried to the touch. After the hand-sort is complete, the parchment is then moved to fully-exposed drying tables to finish drying, a process that takes between 14-21 days depending on the climate.