Gimme! Coffee Rwanda Bourbon Bufcafe
Recently I’ve been strongly drawn to coffees from Rwanda. It all started last summer when I tried a Rwandan coffee from Barrington Coffee that exhibited a remarkable depth of flavor and nuance along with such a supple texture that it made for just wonderfully easy drinking. I later had the opportunity to try another Rwandan coffee from Counter Culture, and while not being as impressed as with the one from Barrington Coffee, I certainly found it to be a great cup of coffee. What ultimately intrigued me the most was the general scarcity of Rwandan coffee from specialty coffee roasters. Most roasters simply weren’t offering Rwandan coffees at the time I was looking for them.
It turns out that the reason for this was twofold. First, coffee is harvested in Rwanda in the fall, meaning that the coffees will ideally be arriving at roasters’ doorsteps in November or December. So my timing was bad, as this was early fall that I was looking. Secondly, the specialty coffee industry in Rwanda is still in its nascent form as farmers slowly improve their agricultural and processing methods, and trade-routes are gradually worked out that will allow the coffee to reach specialty roasters in the US. Thus, the available quantity of the better coffees is pretty limited.
So in sum, this all adds up to limited availability of some very fine coffees. Naturally, when Gimme! began selling the Rwanda Bourbon Bufcafe, I jumped at the chance to pick up a pound. The combination of one of my favorite roasters and the coffee that won the recent Golden Cup Award in Rwanda seemed like a match made in heaven.
The Bufcafe Cooperative is made up of about 3000 farmers who each tend roughly 200 trees on average. Very small-scale coffee growing that places a huge emphasis on the role of the cooperative in enabling the coffee to achieve excellence. Recent years’ coffee premiums paid by specialty roasters enabled the Bufcafe’s mill owner to reinvest in the facilities, improving the quality of the coffee they were producing as well as their environmental impact. The result of the improvements there and in the field resulted in the cooperative winning the coveted Golden Cup, the country’s annual coffee competition.
This pound of coffee came from the same lot that the cooperative’s Golden Cup-winning entry came from. By the time I got my hands on it, it had been roasted about 1.5 weeks earlier. The beans are wet-processed using fully-washed method and are 100% grade AA bourbon varietal. The trees are all grown between 5500-6200 feet in 30% volcanic soil in the Nyamasabe District in the Butare region of Rwanda.
The nose is a unique mix of compelling aromas: cedar, cocoa, apple orchards, orange peel, unripe pears, and toasted bread. The palate conveys strong notes of caramel and dark chocolate, interestingly without the sweetness these flavors would normally carry. Faint traces of red fruit, roasted nuts, and menthol skirt around the edges. The palate is very dry, with a warming, silky texture. On the finish there are flavors of anise and blueberries that rise to the top alongside hints of fresh mint and menthol.
This was definitely another stellar Rwandan coffee. I struggled with it initially though, and it took me several cups to get the amount of grounds and steeping time right. The normal amount of grounds that I use produced a too-strong coffee, so I had to dial back to get everything just right. In the end, it was well worth the tinkering…I’ll be a bit sad when I drink the last cup from this pound of beans.
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