Red bourbon variety, washed process
Roasted for filter brewing
Dried orange, goji berry, and light caramel
This coffee comes to us from father and son producers, Alex and Aimé Gahizi’s Gitesi washing station in the west of Rwanda. We’ve been working with the Gahizis for over a decade now, and value the relationship immensely.
While the coffee washing station was started by Alex Gahizi after the Rwandan genocide, today it’s largely operated by son, Aimé and his team.
Located in the Western Province, the Gitesi operation extends beyond just the washing station to a collection of around 20,000 coffee trees, owned by the Gahizi family. Here, they’re able to experiment with innovative sustainable agricultural techniques and different varieties of coffee trees.
Traditionally, the vast majority of coffee cultivated in Rwanda is a red bourbon variety, and this lot is no different. In future seasons, we hope to be able to source from some of the newer varieties being grown.
At Gitesi, ripe coffee cherries delivered daily from nearly 1,800 local smallholder farmers are hand-sorted before pulping — a process that removes the skin and majority of fruit flesh from the seeds inside. The coffee then undergoes around 16-hours of dry fermentation and a 12-hour freshwater soak before being dried on raised beds for up to 15 days.
This year’s selection from Gitesi is complex and layered, offering flavours of dried orange and goji berry with a light caramel sweetness underneath.
Our relationship with Gitesi spans over a decade. Tim has bought coffee from Alex and Aimé since 2013, and in Australia for the past five years. This year, we directly purchased coffee with the aid of Rwanda Trading Company and Sucafina.