Starbucks Rwanda Sholi Coffee Class: What's the Story Behind Starbucks Rwanda Sholi Coffee

The Story Behind Rwanda Sholi

Rwanda Sholi. The Sholi Cooperative's original name, Abateraninkunga ba Sholi, translates roughly as "mutual assistance," and Sholi is the name of the village. The community sits roughly midway between Lake Kivu (whose Congolese shores you may remember from a previous Reserve Congo Kivu offering) and Kigali, in the Muhanga region. Sholi was founded in 2008, when about 30 women from the Sholi cell of the Muhanga region established it together - the power of women! (Reserve Colombia La Cacina, written up earlier, grew from a similar story.)

Over the past decade the cooperative has worked steadily to improve both its coffee and its community's economy. It earned Fairtrade certification in 2015 and Rainforest Alliance certification in 2016, and on March 29, 2018, Reserve Rwanda Sholi made its public debut at the Shanghai Roastery. The Sholi Cooperative today counts 332 members, 203 of them women, including two of the five board members. The cooperative has also planted more than 400,000 trees.

Mutual assistance has made the cooperative stronger year after year.

Although women-led, the cooperative later welcomed male members, which has made the division of labor more efficient. In 2016, it received funding to establish a community center and a health center providing basic services to everyone. And of course, Sholi runs its own washing station.

Sholi's processing follows the pattern common across Rwanda: washed method. After cherries are delivered to the washing station, they are de-pulped and fermented for about 2 days, then rinsed and soaked for 24 hours, washed again, and finally dried on raised beds much like those used in Kenya.

Coffee Information

Origin: Africa · Rwanda · Muhanga

Processing Method: Washed

Coffee Variety: Bourbon

Altitude: 1800~2000 meters

Acidity: Medium-high     Body: Medium

Flavor: Grapefruit, tropical fruit sweetness

Knowledge Point: Much Rwandan coffee is processed piecemeal by individual farmers, producing inconsistent quality, and is then mixed with coffee processed from neighboring farms.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Sholi's washed Bourbon profile - grapefruit brightness and tropical fruit sweetness - appeals to you, FrontStreet Coffee's washed lineup offers two excellent companions. The FrontStreet Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Worka (Guodingding) Cooperative lot, a G1 washed heirloom from Yirgacheffe, delivers elegant white florals, citrus, orange, and green tea notes with the same clean, transparent style. For a bolder, juicier washed cup, FrontStreet Coffee's Kenya Cherry Tomato comes from the Thika region at 1,550-1,750 meters, built on SL28 and SL34 and processed with Kenya's signature 72-hour double fermentation - expect bright cherry tomato, dried dark plum, pear, and black plum acidity with a syrupy, fresh-pressed-juice body.

Both show how much a disciplined washing station can do. Like Sholi, the best African cooperatives control every step from cherry sorting to raised-bed drying, and that care is exactly what you taste in the cup: clean lines, vivid fruit, and no muddy edges.

For brewing either style, use 15g of coffee at a 1:15 ratio with 90-91°C water in a V60, ground to roughly 80% pass-through on a #20 sieve, and let a three-pour bloom-and-fill rhythm carry the florals and fruit straight into your cup.