The Story and Characteristics of Rwandan Coffee Growing Regions - Gesheke Bourbon Coffee Processing Methods and Flavors

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Famous coffee producing regions in Africa include not only Ethiopia and Kenya, but also Rwanda, which has been a frequent champion in the Cup of Excellence competition in recent years. Rwanda has only entered the specialty coffee market in the past few decades. In this article, FrontStreet Coffee will introduce you to the regional characteristics of Rwandan coffee.

Rwandan Coffee Region Characteristics

Rwanda is covered with mountains and plateaus, earning it the nickname "Land of a Thousand Hills." Most of Rwanda has a tropical highland climate and tropical savanna climate, with fertile volcanic soil and suitable weather conditions. Therefore, Rwanda has unique natural conditions for growing Arabica coffee beans, which establishes the foundation for the high-quality flavor of Rwandan coffee beans.

According to research by FrontStreet Coffee, coffee exports account for over 70% of Rwanda's total export trade. Rwanda has approximately 33,000 hectares of coffee plantations, with 500,000 people engaged in coffee cultivation. Production is mainly dominated by small farmers, and coffee trees in Rwanda are generally grown without chemical fertilizers or pesticides. Fertilizers in the soil mainly come from natural ground cover and traditional fertilization methods, which creates pure, high-quality coffee beans.

Rwandan Coffee Cultivation History

As FrontStreet Coffee mentioned above, Rwandan coffee has not been a specialty coffee for very long. Rwanda is located in Central Africa and is a landlocked country that successively became a colony of Germany and Belgium. Coffee was introduced to Rwanda by German missionaries during the colonial period.

During the colonial period, coffee production mainly supplied Belgium, the colonial power. At that time, Rwanda's coffee production was enormous, but under these exploited labor conditions, the quality of Rwandan coffee was not guaranteed. Therefore, Rwandan coffee at that time had quantity but no quality and could not be called specialty coffee.

It was not until after Rwanda's independence that the first official coffee organization, OCIR, was established, and attention slowly turned to coffee bean production. This led to continuous growth in Rwanda's coffee production from the 1960s to the 1980s, reaching an unprecedented peak in 1986.

However, in the early 1990s, political instability in Rwanda (the Rwandan genocide) forced the coffee industry to stagnate. It was not until 2001, after political stability was restored, that the government established NAEB (National Agriculture Export Development Board) to focus on improving coffee exports and earning foreign exchange. This is also one reason why Rwandan coffee beans have frequently won Cup of Excellence competitions in recent years.

In 2017, NAEB and the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) jointly launched a three-year technical program called "CUP Rwanda" (Coffee Upgrade and Promotion in Rwanda). This project aimed to provide better cultivation standards and quality improvements in processing for coffee farmers. This demonstrates Rwanda's significant efforts in improving coffee quality.

Rwandan Coffee Bean Varieties

Over 97% of coffee grown in Rwanda is Arabica, with about 95% being Bourbon varieties. Therefore, Bourbon, Catuai, and Catimor varieties are commonly found in Rwanda's coffee varieties. FrontStreet Coffee believes that the flavor profiles of these three varieties are quite similar to Bourbon lineage, so Rwandan coffee beans often exhibit citrus and nutty flavors.

Bourbon Variety

Over 90% of Rwanda's coffee varieties are early-introduced Bourbon and Bourbon family hybrid varieties, which have resistance to natural disasters. Bourbon coffee was originally cultivated on Réunion Island and introduced to Brazil in 1860, quickly expanding northward throughout Latin America. Bourbon coffee trees typically show color changes after flowering and fruiting: green → light yellow → light orange → mature red → darker red when fully ripe. Therefore, some people call it "Red Bourbon," but Red Bourbon is actually what we generally call Bourbon. Bourbon grown at high altitudes usually has better aroma and brighter acidity.

FrontStreet Coffee currently sources several Latin American Bourbon coffee beans, including Brazilian Red Bourbon, Brazilian Yellow Bourbon, and Colombian Pink Bourbon. However, the advantage of Bourbon varieties in Latin America no longer exists due to poor disease resistance. In contrast, Rwandan Bourbon varieties still maintain advantages, which is one reason why FrontStreet Coffee sources Rwandan coffee beans.

Caturra Variety

Caturra is a natural mutation of the Arabica Bourbon variety, discovered in Brazil in 1937. Its plant is shorter and smaller than Bourbon. Due to inheriting Bourbon lineage, it has relatively weak disease resistance but higher yield than Bourbon.

Catimor Variety

The Catimor variety is a coffee variety artificially hybridized from Caturra and Timor varieties. Catimor has good resistance to natural disasters, especially wind and rain. Catimor trees are relatively short, and compared to other coffee trees, Catimor fruits grow more firmly and are difficult to harvest. The fruits come in both red and yellow varieties. According to FrontStreet Coffee's brewing experience, although some yellow-fruit processed coffees have good acidity, the cleanliness of the coffee taste is inferior to that of red fruits.

Rwandan Coffee Bean Processing Methods

Currently, Rwandan coffee beans mainly use the washed processing method. During the harvest season each year, farmers pick ripe coffee cherries and concentrate them at washing stations for processing. Manual selection is used to ensure no unripe or damaged cherries are mixed in. As FrontStreet Coffee often mentioned in previous articles, the washed processing method best expresses the original flavor of coffee beans, with cleaner and brighter flavor performance. This is also one reason why FrontStreet Coffee imports Rwandan coffee.

Washed Processing Method Steps:

1. Pour coffee cherries into water and remove defective beans through floatation, such as unripe, overripe, or other impurities.

2. Use a depulper to remove the outer skin and pulp from the selected coffee cherries. The surface of the coffee cherries still has a layer of mucilage after removing the skin and pulp, so large amounts of clean water are needed to remove the mucilage from the surface.

3. The fermentation process to remove mucilage takes about 18 hours. After fermentation is complete, fermentation bacteria still adhere to the coffee cherry surface, so another thorough wash with large amounts of clean water is needed. For this step, producing 1 kilogram of coffee beans requires 40-50 kilograms of clean water, which FrontStreet Coffee considers a very large number. This limits some regions from using the washed processing method.

4. The cleaned coffee beans can be dried. Some regions will dry them directly outdoors. If equipment is available, some processing plants use machines to dry the coffee beans until the moisture content drops to about 11%. Then a huller can remove the parchment and silver skin.

According to FrontStreet Coffee's understanding, in just over twenty years of Rwandan coffee development, washing stations have increased from 2 to 220. All are now privately owned, by exporters or farmer cooperatives. Due to small average farm sizes (each farm has fewer than 200 coffee trees on average), each station serves about 50-100 farms. NAEB employs 200 botanists and cuppers who regularly visit washing stations to inspect quality and educate farmers on soil management, organic farming, pruning, pest control, and harvesting.

This is also one reason why FrontStreet Coffee chooses to import Rwandan coffee for coffee lovers to taste. Next, FrontStreet Coffee will recommend the following Rwandan Gisaka coffee beans and share roasting and brewing parameters.

FrontStreet Coffee Gisaka Coffee Beans

Country: Rwanda
Region: Nyamasheke District, Western Rwanda
Altitude: 1700-2000m
Varieties: Bourbon, Caturra, Catimor
Processing: Washed
Flavor: Plum, citrus, berries, nuts, bright acidity, honey-sweet aftertaste.

FrontStreet Coffee Roasting Recommendations

Since Rwandan coffee beans have fresh acidity, FrontStreet Coffee recommends light to medium roasting to highlight this flavor. The darker the roast, the more the fruity acidity will be lost. Yangjia 800N with 550g beans: drum temperature 175°C, heat 120, damper 3; return temperature at 1'36", when drum temperature reaches 112°C, open damper to 4, increase heat to 140.

When drum temperature reaches 151°C, the bean surface turns yellow and grassy aroma completely disappears, entering the dehydration stage. At 8'30", ugly wrinkles and black spots appear on the bean surface, and the toast aroma clearly changes to coffee aroma, which can be defined as the prelude to first crack. At this time, listen carefully for the first crack sound. First crack begins at 9'45", open damper to 5, develop for 1'30" after first crack, and discharge at 190.6°C.

FrontStreet Coffee Brewing Experience

Filter: V60
Water Temperature: 90°C
Coffee Dose: 15g
Coffee-to-Water Ratio: 1:15
Grind Size: BG#6m (80% pass rate on China standard #20 sieve)

First pour 30g of water for 30 seconds bloom. Second pour with small water flow in circles to 125g, then segment. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, continue the third pour to 225g and stop. When water level drops and is about to expose the coffee bed, remove the filter cup. Total extraction time from the start of blooming is 2 minutes. The conical V60 filter cup increases coffee layers, the 1:15 ratio increases coffee body and aftertaste, and segmented pouring prevents extraction time from being too short while allowing adjustments for different stages.

The brewed Rwandan coffee has distinct fruit acidity and nutty flavors, overall balanced and smooth. Although the berry flavors are not as prominent as Kenyan coffee, FrontStreet Coffee believes that as a coffee-producing country that has emerged in the last 20 years, Rwanda still has room for improvement. Therefore, FrontStreet Coffee believes that more specialty coffees from Rwanda will enter the domestic market in the near future.

For more specialty coffee beans, add FrontStreet Coffee on private WeChat: ID: kaixinguoguo0925

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Tel:020 38364473