RWANDA SUBSCRIPTION

Cup profile: Plum, grilled pineapple and milk chocolate, balanced by black tea on the finish. Sweet and creamy, with great balance and structure
 
Owner/Farm - Epiphanie Mukashyaka/Buf Ubumwe
Location - Kigali, Kamonyi District, Southern Province
Varietal - 100% Red Bourbon
Process - Fully washed & sun dried on raised beds
Altitude - 1550 - 1700 masl
Cup Score - 87
 
This 100% Red Bourbon coffee was processed at Buf Coffee’s Ubumwe washing station (the fourth to be established by Buf), located at around 1,600 metres above sea level near the capital of Kigali.
 
Buf Café was founded in 2003 by Epiphanie Mukashyaka, a dynamic entrepreneur and a source of inspiration to countless others in Rwanda’s coffee sector and beyond.
 
Buf is now managed by Epiphanie and her son, Samuel Muhirwa, who takes an active role in running and expanding the business. The title ‘Buf’ derives from ‘Bufundu’, the former name of the region in which its washing stations are located.
 
Epiphanie, who was born in 1959, was widowed during the 1994 genocide - which claimed over 800,000 lives in just 3 months - but chose not to leave her family’s small coffee farm. Instead she set about rebuilding and developing her business and with it the local community. She started Buf Café in 2003, when she established Remera washing station (her first) with a loan from the Rwandan Development Bank and the assistance of the USAID-financed PEARL project.
 
This transformational programme was aimed at switching the focus in the Rwandan coffee sector from an historic emphasis on quantity to one of quality - and so opening up Rwanda to the far higher-earning specialty coffee market. The programme and its successor, SPREAD, have been invaluable in helping Rwanda’s small-scale coffee farmers to rebuild their production in the wake of the devastating 1994 genocide and the 1990s world coffee crash.
 
Buf Café now owns four coffee washing stations – Remera, Nyarusiza, Umurage and Ubumwe. The company, which was serving fewer than 500 farmers in 2003, is now procuring coffee cherries from almost 7,500 smallholder farmers in the Southern province of Rwanda, among them 1,069 are registered members.
 
Buf has very strong links with the local communities that supply it, providing jobs for hundreds. At the end of each season Buf will share any surplus profits with both the cooperatives with which it works and its washing station managers.
 
Bufcoffee’s forth coffee washing station (CWS) is called Ubumwe CWS, located in the Kamonyi District which is only 20 minutes far away from the capital city Kigali. This CWS had fallen into disrepair until Buf rescued it to serve the surrounding population of smallholder farmers.
 
Before investing in the CWS, Buf did a great amount of research regarding the potential for quality in the region. They found that the Ubumwe area has rich soil nutrients, especially Phosphorus, Potassium, Zinc and Boron, which are necessary for coffee growth and which contribute directly to cherry ripeness and root development. This nutritional difference has a huge impact on coffee growing and, therefore, Ubumwe CWS produces an outstanding quality coffee. Even though Ubumwe is near Kigali at a relatively low elevation, it receives cherries from approximately 500 farmers living at 1,550 to 1,700 metres above sea level.
 
Ubumwe CWS is also unique in that it has a dry mill and a cupping lab facility directly attached to the CWS, which enables it to give very responsive feedback to the surrounding smallholders who bring their coffee for processing. Quality is checked easily and regularly, and farmers are brought directly into that loop.
 
 
Recommended for: perfect for ESPRESSO & filter brewing methods, with or without milk.
 
Hand roasted in tiny batches from various origins. Single origin speciality coffee with amazing flavours.
 
Whilst we recommend you purchasing whole bean coffee and grinding it yourself as you use it. We can also offer ground coffee for specific brewing methods. Please select the origin of your coffee and brewing method or whole bean preference.
 
If you cannot see the grind type for the origin you want. Just order whole bean and leave us a note in the personalisation option. We do this because we have very limited stock of some origins.
 
Coffee will be roasted on Mondays to order. Your roasted coffee will be posted by Royal Mail after a period of degassing. Or you could collect from our nano roastery in Leominster or either of the Aberdyfi Ice Cream Shops in Aberdyfi or Aberystwyth
 
We will notify you when your coffee has been shipped or is ready for collection.