Tag: Rwanda
Stumptown Coffee Roasters Rwanda Muyongwe
I really enjoy writing in this blog, and have since I began just over a year ago. It’s nice to have a forum for writing down all of the thoughts and ideas I have about these topics, the very same ideas or inspirations that lead me to drinking a specific glass of wine or cup of coffee.
But at the same time I find that I end up with a big backlog of drafts where I’ve written a few notes about something while drinking it, in the hope of returning to it at a later date to actually write the post. Sometimes I don’t return to it for weeks or more, by which time the motivation for writing about the glass at hand may have long since passed. Invariably I am disappointed by having missed the moment.
The reality is that my expectations are so high for each post. I try to set a hard limit of 1000 words per post, which is of course a ton. And I typically am reluctant to sit down and work on a post until I have the time and background information to really flesh out an idea. This approach ends up being somewhat prohibitive, since I just don’t have enough time to do all of the writing that I’d like to, especially now with summer in full swing.
So anyhow, this is a long way of talking myself into writing some more brief posts, so that I can both taste and write about a glass in the moment. Never mind working towards a hard limit of 1000 words, instead in these posts I’d like to aim for 250 words. Short, sweet, and timely.
This post (from this point forwards) is my first such attempt. This pound of coffee was the third of three bags that I bought from Stumptown a little while back, and the second of the two that were from Rwanda. After the previous coffee that I’d tried from this trio, the Rwanda Kanza, I was pretty excited about this one. It also was part of an ongoing series of African coffees that I have been very much enjoying as I try to get my head around the idea of terroir as expressed in this country’s several different coffee-producing regions.
The Muyongwe washing station is located in the province of Gakenke in northern Rwanda. This washing station earned some fame (of a sort) in 2007 when it’s coffee earned the highest price ($55/kilo) ever paid for a Rwandan coffee (at the time) after taking top honors at that year’s Golden Cup competition, Rwanda’s annual competition for coffee producers.
The washing station is part of the Tuzamure Kawa Muyongwe cooperative that is comprised of over 1200 small holder coffee farms. The cooperative first began operating in 2006, and at the Muyongwe station processes up to 297 tons of coffee each year. All of the cherries are of the bourbon varietal and is traditionally fermented in wet-tanks before being dried on 40 raised tables that are left uncovered allowing the beans to dry in the sun.
This was very much in the vein of the other Rwandan coffees that I’ve tasted thus far. The nose had scents of dark fruits, a strong, notable earthiness, and unsweetened baker’s chocolate. The palate was rich with smooth, dark bittersweet chocolate - very reminiscent of an 84% dark Ghana chocolate that I had the other day, intense chocolate with very little sweetness. This is a very softly textured coffee, held aloft by a gentle acidity that lends a mildly astringent element to the dominant chocolate flavors. The finish is warm, with melted milk chocolate and dark cherries combining in a medium-length finish.
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Stumptown Coffee Roasters Rwanda Kanzu
This coffee was one of the trio that I recently ordered from Stumptown. One of those online ordering moments when I was delirious at the prospect of sampling not one, not two, but three(!) unique, direct-trade coffees from Stumptown Coffee Roasters. I’m still hung up on getting my hands on different coffees from Rwanda, and so the prospect of trying both of Stumptown’s direct-trade Rwandan offerings alongside their one Burundi coffee was simply too enticing for my mouse-finger to resist. Next thing I knew all three were en route to my doorstep.
I think that everyone who gets hooked on a particular gastronomic delicacy can think back to that one item that opened their eyes and initiated their obsession. For instance, I remember distinctly when this “scotch” moment struck. It was a bottle of Caol Ila 12-Year. It was the first bottle that I’d purchased, and it took me a while to warm up to it. But then one day, I had a dram and it tasted different somehow. My mind had rounded the corner, my tastebuds had woken up to what was in the glass. All of a sudden I could taste nuances of scotch that I had never noticed before, and it was so exciting. The rest, as they say, is history.
I can remember that same moment with regards to coffee, and it’s why I’ve been so avidly seeking out Rwandan coffees of late. My coffee moment was a Rwandan coffee that completely woke me up to the possibilities of the flavors and nuances that a cup of joe can embody. It caught my attention in a way that no coffee had before. Several coffees have since, and they’ve come from all over the world and from several different roasters.
But lately I’ve been in this frame of mind where I’ve been interested in really mining a particular vein of coffee, in an effort to learn as much as I can about the many ways that coffee from one particular country can express itself. Specifically in terms of where it was grown in that country, what varietals were grown, at what washing station it was handled, how it was fermented, how it was packaged before being shipped to the roaster, and the choices the roaster made in producing the final roasted coffee. And so my coffee tasting of late has included a smattering of offerings from Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, and Burundi.
The jury is still out on what I’ve found thus far. There have been two consistent elements in all of the coffees tasted thus far: body and acidity. They’ve all featured medium-weight to velvety bodies that came across as creamy and substantial on your palate. Intrinsically related to this has been the level of acidity, which has been consistently soft and subtle, present in enough capacity to brighten up the coffee’s creamy body, but not so much as to distract from the palate of flavors and substance.
Alongside the consistent elements of body and acidity has been a relatively consistent flavor spectrum that includes dark chocolate, red berries and fruits, and earthy tones. These flavors haven’t been present in all of the coffees, but they have all borrowed something from this basic palette. The overall picture, when you combine these three elements together, has been a series of warming, rather plush coffees that have had significant depth, and expressed chocolate and fruit flavors.
The coffee at hand is a Rwanda Kanzu, produced at the Kanzu washing stations in the Nyamasheke province, located in southwestern Rwanda along the shores of Lake Kivu, the biggest body of water in the country. The coffee is grown at very high altitudes, approximately 1900 meters, with the trees perched on the slopes of the surrounding mountains. The coffee is 100% bourbon varietal, and ripens at a slow rate due to the high altitudes. Stumptown’s literature indicates their belief that this contributes notably to its unique flavors and body.
This coffee is no exception from the pattern of flavor and texture elements that I’ve found thus far. In terms of the flavor spectrum, I found this coffee to be more earthy than some of the others that I’ve tasted recently. The nose had contrasting flavors of forest mushrooms, brown sugar, and fresh baked bread. The palate had a soft and delicate body lightened somewhat by a bright acidity. While some roasters prefer a dark-roast for African coffees, Stumptown uses more of a medium-style roast for theirs, and this coffee is a good example. The roast they’ve used here allows the brighter acidity to sit alongside both fruitiness and dark sugars, and heightens the coffee’s earthiness. The palate has flavors of light red wine (think pinot noir as opposed to cabernet), peanuts, and a dry earthiness. While the coffee initially comes across sweet, it finishes very dry and spare with very little sweetness on the finish. Flavors of oak and a prickle of acidity round out the cup.
This was a good cup of coffee, and very distinct from the other African coffees that I’ve tasted recently. I’ve got one more Rwandan coffee to drink from Stumptown, a Rwanda Muyongwe, and it will be very interesting to note how these two compare to one another.
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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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Counter Culture Coffee Humure-Byumba Rwanda
This past summer I was fortunate to be given a pound of Rwandan coffee from Barrington Coffee Roasters. I was immediately impressed by its deft combination of fruit and depth. Since then, I’ve kept my eyes open for Rwandan coffees from the various roasters that I generally keep tabs on (Intelligentsia, Terroir, Gimme!, and Stumptown to a lesser extent). Vary rarely have any of them offered coffees from Rwanda, leading to the impression that these are somewhat rare coffees for them to get their hands on. Or, and this is probably the more correct answer, the timing of my looking was simply not right. Rwandan coffees are harvested in the summer, and so will generally make their way to the market several months after that. So theoretically, it should be right about now that they start to appear in roasters’ portfolios.
So I was thusly pretty excited when we got a pound of Counter Culture’s Rwandan coffee as a Christmas gift. Counter Culture is a roaster who I’m pretty interested in and have not yet had the chance to try any of their coffees. From what I’ve seen and read, they have a great reputation for working closely with farmers to establish good working relationships, and they produce some great roasted coffees. The Christmas gift included two pounds of their coffee, the Rwandan and a Kenyan micro-lot, both very exciting looking. But it was the Rwandan that I was the most excited about, and I could hardly resist the temptation to dive right in and brew a cup of it.
This coffee is produced by farmers in the Humure community, located in the Byumba province. A washing station was built in this community recently as part of the PEARL project (http://www.rwandacoffeepals.com/pearlproject.php), an effort aimed at improving the lives of Rwandan farmers through agriculture-based initiatives. The washing stations have been built throughout Rwanda, and are credited by people such as Peter Guiliano of Counter Culture and George Howell of Terroir Coffee with having led to the vast improvement in the quality of Rwandan coffee.
Counter Culture gives this data regarding its production:
- Varietal: French Mission Bourbon
- Altitude: 1700-2000 meters
- Harvest: Summer
If this coffee is any indication, their right on the money. This is a great coffee. It has lots of depth to the flavors, the mouthfeel is fabulous, and the coffee’s weight is well balanced with its flavors.
The nose is interesting, with notes of blueberry, walnut, anise, and something almost minty. The palate is very softly textured, with a creamy sweetness to it. Delicate flavors of caramel and cocoa stand out, but in general this is a very dry coffee, not overly sweet. Finish has a slight flavor of mushrooms (in a good way) accompanied by nutmeg and cocoa. Like I said, this coffee is very nicely balanced and is very easy to drink on a coldish winter day.
An email newsletter that I just received from Terroir Coffee indicated that they recently received their Rwandan coffees and will be roasting them in mid-January. That sounds pretty exciting, and I may try to snap up a pound of that. Something to look forward too!
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