Country: RWANDA
Region: Gakenke District, Ruli Sector, Northern Province
Owner: Dukunde Kawa Cooperative
Washing Station: Nkara
Farmers: 135 female cooperative members
Altitude: 1,880 metres above sea level
Variety: 100% Red Bourbon
Processing: Fully Washed

Bright and floral. Mandarin and frangipane, orange blossom with green apple acidity.

About Nkara Women’s Coffee (with thanks to Melbourne Coffee Merchants):

This special microlot was produced using cherry grown from 135 women farmers who own and grow coffee on small farms in the hills surrounding Nkara washing station, the smallest of three washing stations owned by the Dukunde Kawa Cooperative. Nkara is located close to the small town of Mususa, in the Ruli Sector of Gakenke District, in Rwanda’s mountainous Northern Province.

Many of the women who contributed to this lot are also members of Rambagirakawa, a women’s alliance within Dukunde Kawa that was formed to advocate for support and resources for female coffee producers. Through collaboration with both Rambagirakawa and international buyers, Dukunde Kawa has assisted the women in processing and marketing their coffees as a separated ‘Women’s Coffee’ lot, which earns them an additional bonus payment on top of the quality premium all Dukunde Kawa members receive.

To distinguish their coffee and ensure it is processed separately, the women have organised to deliver cherry to the washing station on certain days of the week. While this lot was processed at Nkara washing station, members of Rambagirakawa may also deliver to its sister washing stations, Ruli and Mbilima, depending on their location.

Many of the founding members of Rambagirakawa were widowed by the 1994 genocide and relied upon each other for farming and financial advice. The group is now open to all of the female members of Dukunde Kawa and has grown to 304 members. Some 135 women contributed to this lot. Besides selling their coffees as separated lots, members have wholeheartedly pursued additional income opportunities, like basket weaving and embroidery, to develop greater independence both economically and socially. The result is an empowered and ambitious alliance of women, whose ever-expanding activities focus on creating opportunity and success for the women and children in their community.

ABOUT NKARA WASHING STATION

Nkara was established in 2005 and is the smallest and most remote of Dukunde Kawa’s washing stations, supporting 250 growers – 120 of whom are women – who own small farms in the surrounding villages. The washing station is incredibly remote and sits at an elevation of 1,880 meters above sea level, overlooking a beautiful landscape of rolling green hills and rich, red earth. Quality control and day to day operations at Nkara are overseen by Michel Dusengimana, who has been the manager since 2007. He is one of the washing station’s three permanent staff members. During the season there are 50 staff members working at Nkara, who are mostly women, employed to sort the coffee during its drying stages.

The area surrounding Nkara has mineral-rich soil and a lush environment that is well suited to specialty coffee production. Typically, farms are very small – averaging just a quarter of a hectare – and are situated between 1,800 to 2,100 meters above sea level. Coffee is grown as a cash crop, alongside subsistence food crops like maize, beans and sorghum and some livestock like goats, chickens and cows.

Head here to learn more about the work of Dukunde Kawa in Rwanda.

PROCESSING AT NKARA WASHING STATION

The team at Dukunde Kawa takes a huge amount of care in processing its coffee. All members of the cooperative are trained to only select ripe coffee cherries from their trees.

• On delivery, the cherries are inspected and sorted by hand to ensure only the very ripest cherries are processed. Farmers do the selecting, and receive the highest income from the ripest, healthier fruit. The remainder of their crop still gets purchased by the co-op, at a lower price, to be processed and sold for the internal market.
• Cherry is then sorted by weight (and any floaters are removed) by a Pinhalense machine that the washing station staff affectionately have named the ‘Umupolisi’ (police person). By using a machine, rather than a clerk, Dukunde Kawa are more transparent with contributing growers about which fruit gets processed. Coffee is then pulped on the same day – usually in the evening – using a mechanical pulper that divides the beans into three grades by weight, with the heaviest, A1, usually having the highest cup quality.
• After pulping, the coffee is pre-washed and fermented overnight for around 12–18 hours and then graded again using floatation channels that sort the coffee by weight. The wet parchment is the washed a second time and left to ferment for a further six hours — with the goal of removing as much mucilage as possible without using machinery that may accidentally crush or damage the beans.

  

• As with most washing stations in Rwanda, women do the majority of hand-sorting. This takes place in two stages – on the covered pre-drying tables and on the drying tables. Washed beans are moved from the wet fermentation tanks onto the pre-drying tables, where they are intensively ‘wet sorted’ under shade for four hours. The idea is that greens (unripe beans) are still visible when the beans are damp, while the roofs over the tables protect the beans from the direct sunlight.
• Next, the beans are moved onto the washing station’s extensive raised drying tables (‘African beds’) for around two weeks, where they are sorted again for defects, turned regularly and protected from rain and the midday sun by covers, ensuring both even drying and the removal of any damaged or defective beans. During this period the coffee is also turned several times a day by hand to ensure the coffee dries evenly and consistently.
• After reaching 11-12% humidity, the coffee is then transported to Dukunde Kawa’s purpose-built warehouse prior to final dry-milling and hand sorting at the cooperative’s dry mill.
• Located in Ruli, Dukunde Kawa’s dry mill has the capacity to process one full container of coffee a day — and combines the use of technology with meticulous hand sorting to ensure only the best beans are bagged. Before being loaded for export, Rwanda’s National Agricultural Export Development Board also inspects and samples the prepped parchment.

WHY WE LOVE IT

This lot exemplifies the hard work the members of Dukunde Kawa have undertaken to produce coffees that fulfil the potential of this beautiful region. We feel so lucky to work with Dukunde Kawa. When we first started working with the cooperative over a decade ago, the president at the time, Anastase Minani, explained that their goal was to be the very best cooperative in Rwanda. We think they’re well on their way to achieving this goal, and we are excited to shared the journey with them.