In 2013, we built our first washing station, Bukeye, and produced our first bag of Burundi coffee. During that harvest season, the volume of coffee cherries getting delivered to Bukeye far outstripped our small washing station’s capacity to produce coffee. It turned out that coffee farming families were coming from far and wide, travelling more than three hours by foot over slippery and broken roads to reach Bukeye; a washing station with balanced scales that paid a fair price for coffee cherries.
Vincent Nyandwi is just one of many coffee farmers that we met last coffee harvest who had walked for hours to deliver his cherries. He had to choose between walking fifteen kilometers from his home to reach Bukeye Washing Station, or five kilometers to our small cherry collection point…all while carrying a forty kilogram bag of coffee cherries on his back.
Vincent Nyandwi, a Burundian coffee farmer
The dedication of coffee farmers like Vincent to producing quality coffee stood out to our team, both in the field and on the cupping table. Every year since then, we have been trying to bring a washing station closer to these rural farming communities.
“Ninga was one of the first hills that we visited before founding Long Miles and deciding to build our own washing station[s]. After visiting the region, we fell in love with the coffee’s flavor profile on the cupping table. Building a washing station on Ninga hill would open up the possibility of working with over 2,000 neighboring coffee growing families who, up until now, have had to walk for kilometers to reach the nearest washing station. Ninga’s proximity to the Kibira Forest also opened up the opportunity to plant green belts of trees extending from the forest to the hill, helping to improve soil health and encouraging the practice of shade-grown coffee.” – Ben Carlson, co-founder of Long Miles Coffee.
Having a washing station closer to Ninga hill means that coffee farmers will be able to spend less time travelling to deliver their cherries after the many hours spent harvesting them. The time between cherry picking and then cherry processing will also be shortened; a helpful step towards improving the coffee’s quality. Ninga Washing Station will help us to build long-term relationships with coffee farming families in the region, provide neighboring communities with job opportunities and the access to farmer education.
In 2017, we bought a piece of land seated at 1900 masl, a fifteen kilometer drive from our Bukeye Washing Station. The land is flanked by the Nkokoma River, which means that fresh water will run through the McKinnon to pulp and wash the coffee parchment. Little did we know that significant changes in the country’s coffee regulatory board that year would cause a delay in the build out of the washing station.
It took us close to three years to check off all the necessary paperwork and cross the bureaucratic red tape in order to start producing coffee at our Ninga Washing Station site. With the opening of coffee harvest in April and forty-five newly built drying tables, we started producing the first natural processed micro-lots of the season.
During the natural process, coffee cherries are floated and hand-sorted after being delivered by coffee farmers to the washing station site, then taken straight to the drying tables. The whole coffee cherry spends between twenty-five to thirty days drying in its skin (depending on the weather), slowly turning from deep red to a prune-like purple-black color until fully dry; reaching the ideal 10.5% moisture level.
This coffee harvest, some farming families from Ninga hill continued to deliver their cherries to Bukeye Washing Station. These cherries were processed as both fully washed and natural micro-lots at Bukeye. Other families who grow their coffee in the same region decided to deliver their harvest to our new Ninga Washing Station site. These cherries were processed as sundried naturals. Come next year’s coffee harvest, all of the cherries grown and harvested on Ninga hill will be processed at Ninga Washing Station.
You might notice that two new coffees have been added to our fold this year: Bumba and Gikuhill. These coffees were processed as sundried naturals at our Ninga Washing Station site along with the coffee cherries from Ninga hill that were delivered there.
It takes a lot of time, resources and people to build a washing station in Burundi. It’s our hope to see Ninga Washing Station built to completion in time for next year’s coffee harvest season.
The next time that you find a bag of roasted Ninga, Bumba or Giku coffee, drink a cup at your favorite local café or brew one of these coffees at home, please let us know! We would love to hear what you think.
Felipe Sardi (La Palma y El Tucán) wasn’t always a coffee producer and exporter. We dig into the early years of failure preluding La Palma as it is today, and what the tipping point was for Felipe and Elisa (co-founder of La Palma). Felipe talks to us about how organic farming practices haven’t paid off for Colombian coffee farmers, and why the specialty coffee industry should be pushing the limits to become more sustainable.
collected and translated by Joy Mavugo in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Long Miles Story team.
July is a significant month for the farming communities in Burundi. It’s usually the month that marks the end of harvest season- not just for coffee, but for other subsistence crops too. Some farmers call July ‘the month of resting’, as their focus shifts from coffee towards preparing their land to plant other subsistence crops in time for the next rainy season (expected in September). Other farmers call it ‘one of the busiest times of the year’ as their focus stays on coffee. The short dry season in July means that their soil needs to be protected from the East African sun with mulch and weeding. It’s also the time to start thinking about which coffee trees need to be pruned.
On Wednesday, 1st July 2020 the country also celebrated its fifty-eighth Independence Anniversary from Belgian rule. We asked some coffee farmers what their thoughts were on the country’s anniversary.
“Independence Day is really important to me. I celebrated [the independence anniversary] with my children in Kayanza center. That day, I celebrated freedom; there was no freedom before our independence. I was still a little boy, but I remember many things from that time. During the colonization period, people were beaten and forced to do certain activities. But I’m grateful for the good things that the colonizers brought into Burundi. My father was once beaten for cultivating coffee, but now my family stands on coffee. Even my own children are now coffee farmers, and they’re not doing it by force. It’s because of the benefits they saw in growing coffee. The colonizers also taught us to know God.” Pascal Murengerantwari is a seventy-year old coffee farmer from Mikuba hill. He has ten coffee plantations with 1,000 coffee trees.
“I think that 1st July is special for all Burundians, especially for those who were alive during the colonization period. I learnt about it in school. Burundians were forced to do labor like building roads, bridges, and other national works. They were also physically punished. Whenever I talk with old people who were alive at the time, they say that it was very hard, but there are many benefits for myself and other Burundians because of it. I also learnt that the colonizers taught Burundians about God. They built hospitals and taught people about health; built schools and taught people how to read and to write. I’m celebrating the country’s freedom and the good things that came from colonization.” Bonaventure Niyibigira is a twenty-two year old coffee farmer from Munyinya hill. He has two coffee plantations with 200 coffee trees.
From the Field
written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager for Long Miles Coffee
Last time, I shared our plans about parchment transfer from the washing stations to the dry mill. This has begun and is still going on. So far, all the trucks we loaded reached the mill successfully. No breaking down during the journey, no delays that result in waiting to offload the following day. Moreover, on July 20th, we were allowed to start milling.
However, some of the challenges I mentioned in the previous newsletter have already prevailed. In fact, we waited longer than expected to be allowed to mill and the handpicking space is almost full. We plan to start handpicking tomorrow, July 22nd, but the space will be so limited that we will only employ around seventy people while before we could hire three hundred. However, seventy is ok as we will be able to manage them well (which is good for quality) and also we can guarantee that there is enough space between each other in a way that respects the social distancing, in this period of COVID-19.
written by David Stallings, Roaster Relations for Long Miles Coffee
For the past seven weeks I have spent the better part of every day engaged in either analyzing green coffee samples (taking humidity and water activity readings), roasting samples, cupping samples, or logging data associated with one of these activities. I then use this data to construct lots of coffee that are roughly twenty bags in size.
In order to construct the roughly twenty bag lots I first consider the hill from which the coffee was delivered. All of our micro-lots are traceable down to a specific hill (a hill, or colline, being a distinct geopolitical unit in Burundi) from which the coffee came. After that I consider the water activity of the day lots. All of the micro-lots we produce have a water activity reading between 0.45 and 0.55aw. If the water activity is above this we will re-dry the coffee, if it is below this it will not be sold as micro-lot quality coffee. For lot construction purposes this year I have chosen to blend coffees together based on where in this range they fall. Coffees with a water activity reading between 0.45-0.49aw are blended together while coffees with a reading between 0.50-0.55aw are blended together. Finally, the flavor profile of the coffees are considered in blending.
As Seth mentioned above, I am thrilled to note that milling of our lots has begun. Once I receive the finished, milled and handpicked samples from our first run through the mill, our partners can expect samples to begin arriving in the post! We will be milling the remainder of July, all through August, and even into September. As such, I expect to be sending samples from mid-August through October. If you have not been in touch with me to discuss your 2020 harvest needs, please do so! If you have been, know that I will be in touch soon with updates on samples coming your way!
Tyler Youngblood (Azahar Coffee Company) co-founded an export company and café while on a road trip with friends through South America in 2010. Ben and Abby talk to Tyler about his role in developing the Colombian specialty coffee sector, co-creating “A Sustainable Coffee Buyer’s Guide” and whether it’s affordable to pay a dynamic price for coffee.
SHOW NOTES
Sprudge is a coffee publication and global hub of coffee culture and original journalism.
Benjamin Paz (Beneficio San Vicente) is a coffee farmer, producer, roaster and exporter in Santa Barbara, Honduras. Benjamin talks to Ben and Abby about what producing coffee during a global pandemic looks like, the challenges facing Honduran coffee farmers and answers the question: is producing commercial coffee more sustainable than specialty coffee?
Show Notes
7 Corners Coffee: specialty coffee shop in the heart of Minneapolis.
Saint Frank Coffee: specialty coffee shop in San Francisco, California. Saint Frank was founded by Kevin Bohlin (who is also mentioned in this episode).
A few places Benjamin mentioned where you find San Vicente coffee in North America:
The Long Miles Coffee Scouts are grassroots community changers who take coffee quality very seriously. They are a team of twenty-six Burundians who live and work on the hills where coffee is grown. Under the leadership of Epaphras Ndikumana (Long Miles Social and Environmental Impact Leader), The Coffee Scouts come up with innovative and home-grown solutions to fight the threat of the potato taste defect, mitigate the effects of climate change on soil health and empower farmers with the tools they need to produce quality coffee.
The Coffee Scouts got their name the day they left on their first mission, armed with spray bottles of organic pesticide to scout for antestia bugs, the colorful bugs linked to the potato taste defect, in neighboring coffee farms.
“The name ‘scout’ is used in Burundi to describe a group of people in the Catholic church. Most of the time, they are dynamic people who are ready to serve their neighbors, whoever they might be. I thought that we needed dynamic men and women like this, who are ready to serve the community of coffee growers; people who are ready to spend their time and energy accompanying coffee farmers in the trajectory of becoming specialty coffee producers. This is why we called the team ‘The Coffee Scouts’.” – Epaphras Ndikumana, Long Miles Social & Environmental Impact Leader
Since their inception in 2014, The Coffee Scouts have become a quintessential part of Long Miles, and have been pivotal in improving the quality of the coffee we produce at the farm level. They play a crucial role in bridging the gap between our washing stations and the neighboring coffee farming families who deliver their cherries to us.
Each Coffee Scout works with a group of farmer friends from the hill they work on, committing to help them understand and use better agricultural practices. Together with these farmers, The Coffee Scouts set up Farmer Field Schools which are small, model coffee farms. On these farms, anyone in the community can come to practice farming techniques, ask questions, and learn.
During coffee harvest, The Coffee Scouts can be found in the field, guiding farmers through selective cherry picking or at the washing stations, helping with farmer reception and coffee cherry quality control. You can’t miss them in their bright red t-shirts. Long after coffee harvest has ended, you’ll still find The Coffee Scouts in the hills teaching communities of coffee growers the importance of mulching and fertilizing the soil, seasonally pruning their coffee trees, growing green manures, planting and distributing indigenous shade trees, and preparing coffee seedling nurseries. And catching antestia bugs, of course.
While The Coffee Scout’s work is widely appreciated on the hills we collect coffee from, their job hasn’t come without challenges.
“At the beginning, it was hard for us to get farmers to follow what we were doing. People had never seen others running after insects trying to catch them. They thought that we were crazy! It was also difficult to build relationships with communities of coffee growers because we were new to the coffee sector.”
Back in 2014, the team was made up of just four junior agronomists working on two hills. Since those early days, The Coffee Scouts have expanded to a team of twenty-six (nine of which are women), working with coffee growing communities on twenty neighboring hills. Two of the founding Scouts have become the managers of Bukeye and Heza washing stations, with another two Scouts becoming washing station assistants.
“Our vision is to scale the team, not just for Long Miles Coffee in Burundi but on an East African Community level. The valuable contribution of The Coffee Scouts, both in empowering coffee growers and increasing the quality of coffee they produce, needs to be known and recognized worldwide.” – Epaphras Ndikumana
The Coffee Scouts are continuously growing as leaders and mobilizers in their communities. Their innovation and positivity is the beginning of a better future being realized for generations of coffee farmers in Burundi.
collected and translated by Joy Mavugo in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Long Miles Story team.
On Thursday, 18 June 2020 the newly elected president Evariste NDAYISHIMIYE was sworn into office, two months before the official inauguration ceremony was planned and a week before the burial of late president H.E Pierre NKURUNZIZA. We asked some people how they were feeling about the unprecedented and significant changes happening in the country at this time.
“I knew that the ceremony was supposed to be in August. I don’t know why it was decided to have it earlier, but what’s important is that everything happened peacefully. It seemed strange to me, because it’s the first time to see a big ceremony happen in Burundi while the body of important leader of the country is still in the morgue.” – Samuel is a coffee farmer from Gitwe hill.
“It makes sense that the ceremony happened before the scheduled time, because there was no president in the country. In Kirundi, we say “Igihugu nti gipfakara” which means “The country can’t be a widower”. It’s good that the new president has stepped in. I was happy about the ceremony, and I’m happy for the new president. I’m waiting to see the changes that he will bring.” – Tharcisse is a coffee farmer from Nkonge hill.
“I was happy that day, because Burundi without a president is like an army without a commander. What amazes me is that during a time where there was no president in the country, there was no news to say that anyone had been killed. There was full peace. I wish that the new president will bring peace to the country, and bring back the people who have fled the country in the past.” – Gaslide from Gaharo hill
From the Field
written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager for Long Miles Coffee
Now we have been processing coffee for about three months. This is a crucial period where a lot of attention has to be paid to how we process coffee. In fact, all we do at this stage will determine the quality of coffee we are going to produce. In other words, this is the most sensitive period to the quality of the coffee. This is where we as Long Miles do cherry selection, pulping, fermenting, grading, soaking, pre-drying, drying, moisture tracking, parchment storage… in a very monitored way, every day and seriously. As coffee can not wait at this stage, we will understand that, during this period, laborers have to work so hard. Life, during this period, follows the same pattern. But the reality is that it is hard, complex, demanding… overall, the busiest time of the season.
However, we are in transition to another period that is similar to production at stations, though there are some nuanced differences. These days, stations are sending a lot of samples to process, analyze, and send to the main lab in the States. After getting feedback from the main lab, then we know the order of lots loading, and how and what needs to be transferred at the Dry Mill. For the moment, we have some results from the lab and next week our first truck of parchment will land at BUDECA Dry Mill, in Gitega, the political center of Burundi. Then we shall start milling, probably early July. Simply put, dry milling consists of hulling, grading (by machine), color sorting, hand-picking, packaging, classification or taxation, and then documentation preparation that precedes green coffee exportation. This can bring many challenges: many companies may be submitting their milling program at the same time, power going off, forklifts breaking down, handpicking space lacking, bags marking being so slow… however, despite these possible challenges, my teammates and I are excited and ready to start milling as it is the final stage in getting our coffee in exportable condition and switching the story back to hearing from roasters.
written by David Stallings, Roaster Relations for Long Miles Coffee
Being coffee producers, there is never a lack of interesting information to share. In fact, this was a huge reason for wanting to start these updates. In everyday conversation with the team in Burundi, I would hear things that made me feel, “This should be shared with people in specialty coffee consuming countries!” While the header for my section is titled “[Notes] From the Lab,” I have, and will continue to, take the liberty to muse beyond the lab, as it were. In a sense, I feel that my role at Long Miles is to be the touchpoint between the work we do in Burundi and the people who roast and consume our coffees. Further, having been a green coffee buyer and also someone running coffee roasteries for many years prior to my time at Long Miles, I feel well-positioned to pull out topics of interest in order to shine a light on them. Topics that I hope those reading this section will find as interesting as I do.
Before working directly for a coffee producer, I thought I understood how critical the weather, rain in particular, was to a growing season. It turns out this is a topic that literally cannot be stressed enough. If you have been following along with these emails and/or our social media presence, you probably have some idea of just how much of a rollercoaster 2020 has been as it pertains to rain in Burundi. The year started out with seemingly unending, damaging rains. These rains caused landslides, ruined buildings, damaged crops that would have been eaten or have provided a household income for families, prevented the planting of the year’s second round of food staples, and more. The rains finally stopped a few weeks into the harvest season. This was a boon to the drying of our coffees. During the 2018 harvest, we were faced with the challenges of drying coffee amidst steady and continued rain. During rain you must cover the coffee on the drying beds with sheets of plastic. While this works fine for temporary afternoon showers, it is far from ideal for multi-day stretches. If covered for too long a host of issues can present themselves, from molds to the developing of a phenolic (chemical-like, think chlorine) taste in the cup.
It only took a few weeks for the great boon of dry weather to feel burdensome. During the Burundi harvest period, one can typically expect occasional showers. These showers help ripen the coffee fruit that remains on the trees. As the climate remained stubbornly dry we watched our coffee volume projections shrink for the year, just as we watched coffee begin to shrivel up on the tree. Without the necessary ripening rains the coffee cherries would turn from green to reddish-brown, never properly ripening.
I share all of this in order to set the stage for what I thought was quite an interesting anecdote I heard Seth Nduwayo and Epaphras Ndikumana (Long Miles’ Quality Control Manager, and Social and Environmental Impact Leader, respectively) discussing one day recently. They were commenting on the fact that there was so much coffee remaining on the trees, waiting for rain in order to ripen it, because the soil health is so poor. They told me that if certain fertilizers had been applied at the appropriate time, this would not be nearly as big of an issue. As much as my mind was with the tragedy of the coffee remaining on the trees, destined to never reach maturity, I could not help but find this fascinating.
Some very brief notes on inputs in Burundi: in recent years the government of Burundi has banned the importation of fertilizers, looking instead to promote a new state-built and run fertilizer company. The issue has been that the government has struggled to deliver fertilizer at the appropriate time of year, if at all. Inputs must be applied at the appropriate time, otherwise, their use is non-effective and quite literally a waste of money. While writing this weeks’ email update I visited the Wikipedia page Agriculture in Burundi, which very clearly lays out the issues in one sentence under the section Land: “Much of the land has suffered a loss of fertility because of soil erosion from poor agricultural practices, irregularity of rainfall, lack of fertilizer, and shortened fallow periods.”
There is good news, however, as there almost always is… over the past two weeks we have received periodic rains and have seen the deliveries to our washing stations hold steady in volume. Much of the cherry on the trees is properly ripening and we could not be more thrilled. While this harvest is not destined to hit the volumes we were hoping for back in February, it is certainly looking more positive than it was just a few weeks ago. We are grateful for this.
Secondly, while it may seem scary to talk about poor soil health, I firmly believe that the lack of inputs and low yields contribute to the exceptional quality we taste in the cup. This is a theme I have noticed time and again as a coffee buyer. It became most obvious for me back in 2015 while traveling in Kenya. In Kenya you see private estates growing coffee trees laden with fruit, owing in part to the plant genetics but also to the high level of chemical inputs. These private estates get 30, 35, even 45+ kilograms of coffee cherry per tree each harvest. Farms owned by smallholders delivering to cooperatives, on the other hand, would have straggly looking coffee trees producing 1.5 to 2 kilograms of coffee cherry per tree. Agronomists in Kenya are quick to point out the health of the abundantly producing, heavily fertilized trees as opposed to the relatively unhealthy smallholder trees. That said, it is my opinion that the best coffees in Kenya come from the cooperatives, whose members have relatively low yielding trees. Since this 2015 realization, I have applied this thought to various countries, varieties, and even harvests. Time and again I see it play out… lower-yielding is almost always more enjoyable in the cup.
Without question, this thinking presents a financial conundrum. There must be a balance between larger yields and quality in order to maximize income for producers. In all honesty, I only wish I could say that we, as an industry, are even close to working with producers to achieve said balance and find the optimum yield to quality ratio. In reality, this incredibly nascent specialty industry is still boot-strapping it – in a sense. Doing whatever it can to get by, while sticking to its purported goals. I merely share all these reflections as food for thought. Starts of conversations. Conversations which we hope to contribute to now and into the future.
I have certainly seen this maxim play out on my cupping lab the past couple of weeks. As I continue to taste through table samples from the harvest that is still underway, I continue to be blown away by the quality and qualities of Burundi coffee (produced from low yielding coffee trees in soil of relatively poor health). These are exceptional coffees and we cannot wait to share them with you all over the coming weeks and months!
On 20 May 2020, more than five million Burundians lined up to cast their vote in the country’s presidential elections. This was the first set of democratic elections to take place in almost 15 years. We asked some coffee farmers what their thoughts were on this:
“I heard people saying that there is a new president. I’m happy for him.”
Jeannine. 35 years old.
“I think the elections went well. I’m an old man who only needs peace, but for young people who need change it wasn’t the same case. Since voting day, the young people from the opposition party kept being badly beaten up by the young people from the ruling party. As parents, it hurts to see this. I believe that God will use the new president to make change. I don’t want to see Burundi going back to the bad times it went through.”
Thomas. 55 years old.
“The candidate that I voted for is not the one who won, but what is important is that until now there is peace in Burundi, and people are still doing their daily activities.”
Jean-Claude. 32 years old.
“I have bad memories of the last election, and this voting period scared me. In 1993, in less than 5 hours 15 of my family members, including my father, were killed. I was the only child left in the family. I appreciate how safe these elections were. I’m not surprised by the result, as I had put in my mind that the ruling part would be the winner in Burundi. Maybe our grandchildren will change things because I don’t believe that this generation will see political freedom.”
Leonidas. 34 years old.
“The election started well. During the campaigning period people were happy, but from the voting day things went bad. My brother who is a part of the opposition party was working in a polling station. People from the ruling party were there too and had a box of voting cards. They were voting for people who weren’t even there. When my brother stopped them, they beat him and he was taken to hospital. I’m not happy about the election results because the ruling party didn’t win; they stole it instead.”
Eduard.
“I’m waiting to see what new things the president will bring. I hope that he’s going to promote the coffee crop.”
Pronie.
“I don’t know many things about the elections. I only heard people saying that they went well. I went to a polling station at a nearby primary school. I don’t know who I voted for. The person who was working at the polling station told me to put my fingerprint in front of the eagle. There were many old people voting with me who were told to put their vote in front of that eagle too.”
collected and translated by Joy Mavugo in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Story Team.
It’s been a hard week for Burundi. On Monday 8 June 2020, we heard the news that Burundi’s late president H.E Pierre NKURUNZIZA had very suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. Flags were lowered to half-mast and the country went into a week-long mourning period to remember the person who lead and governed Burundi for close to 15 years.
“When I first heard the news, I couldn’t accept what others were telling me. Two days before, the police stopped people on the road saying that the president was passing by. The second person who told me was my friend who said that the president had died from disease. I asked him: “Who told you that news? Is that disease CORONA?” He told me that he didn’t know. After realizing that it’s true, that the president died, the first question I asked is: “Who will give the presidential chair to his successor at the big ceremony in August?” Death is not afraid. Even if people call themselves great, only God will live forever.” – Céléstin from Mikuba hill.
“It was really scary news, because it happened just after the elections. Burundians, especially from the hill where I live, have bad memories of elections. When I heard the news, I didn’t even ask the cause of his death. Immediately, my heart told me that things will happen again like they did in 1993. I went home and started listening to the radio to hear what the situation is in the country. The good thing is that after his death, no other Burundians have lost their lives. Only…it’s still too early to believe. The lesson I’ve learnt from the president’s death is that there is no great person in the world. God is powerful, and he does what he wants on earth and heaven.” – Bénoit from Mikuba hill.
“When I heard the news, I was very surprised. At first, I didn’t believe what people were saying. I am now wondering: what will happen next? What makes me happy is that things are quiet in the country and there is peace. Nothing is impossible. Three days in the country without a president, and life is normal. The world has surprises in store for us.” – Noël from Mikuba hill
Constructing drying tables at the new Ninga Washing Station
From the Field
written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager
Weather It would sound as if I have an endless repetition of climate stories. One can wonder, “isn’t there anything else more interesting you can be talking about?” However, this is to emphasize how severe and strange the climate is. So, when our partners hear that we have an Environmental Bottom Line among our four bottom lines, they find that it was not a mere choice of words. Rather, it is a real and serious challenge we have to face. While previously I shared with you the lack of rain that caused some berries to dry on the trees, before yesterday we got unexpectedly some rain in Bukeye and a lot of it at Heza, Kayanza. This is not bad as it will help some berries to ripen. However, for trees that didn’t have berries these will start blossoming. And as after this little rain sunny days are going to follow, then the blossoms may dry because they will have sprouted in a wrong period.
Ninga Washing Station I also spoke about how Ninga farmers are so happy that finally Ninga project is in course of implementation and they can deliver close, without the long walks. As Long Miles Team, we share the happiness with those farmers because Ninga has started to bear fruits. In fact, the first lots that were collected in Ninga and surrounding hills have been taken off the table, this week. Though I referred to our infrastructures at Ninga as basic, I believe that the quality of coffee that was processed there is at the same level or even higher than what is produced at our old stations. My fear is that the supply might be too much lower than the demand. However, we expect the next harvest to be good enough to satisfy all Ninga lovers in both quality and quantity.
A No-Visitor Harvest COVID-19, has changed the way humanity lives and works; the coffee industry was not spared. We used to host guests who came to visit our factories (Washing Stations). They came for various purposes but we enjoyed hosting them. Some were customers, others were interns, students who want to be at an origin, Cup of Excellence judges, etc. Personally, I really liked that they were coming. In fact, even when they may not buy our delicious coffees, at least they would tell a story about us or recommend their friends to partner with us. In this way, our reputation kept expanding, with many eyewitnesses. This year no more new visitors so far, except those following on Instagram or receiving our newsletters. I wish COVID ended so that we come back to normal.
Since the last Harvest Update email, I have received two boxes of table samples. Two more are currently en route; one has just made it to New York City the other is in Nairobi. The coffees I have tasted the past two weeks represent the first coffees delivered to our washing stations this season and, as such, are from quite small lots – some projected to be well less than one bag in size once milled.
Every single table sample produced will be coming through our East Coast lab [i.e. my basement] this year. This includes everything from our highest quality parchment, which is destined to become micro-lots, to our “Cherry-B” lots. (Cherry-B being the underripe and overripe cherries delivered by farmers. We are legally obliged to purchase these coffees from farmers but process them separately as to not lower the quality of our micro-lot coffees.)
The majority of my time over the next two months will be spent analyzing green coffee samples, roasting and cupping said samples, and constructing lots based on volumes, quality, flavor profile, hills, and demand. This is some of the most enjoyable and rewarding work I have the pleasure of doing. I could not be more thrilled to report that the table samples I have cupped thus far this season are of absolute stellar quality.
Beyond cup quality, the physical characteristics of the lots I have analyzed thus far have been quite reassuring. Every lot I have measured the water activity of has fallen between our desired 0.45-0.55 aw, with the majority of them being in the lower half of this range. Based on the quality of our landed lots from last year, this is exactly where we want our coffees sitting for optimal longevity and freshness.
Links worth checking out
Our friends at La Cabra recently shared a video shot by Paw Gissel during their 2018 visit to Burundi. Check it out here.
An interesting NPR piece on COVID-19 and Africa can be found here.
A New York Times article on the death of President Nkurunziza can be found here.
An Al Jazeera article on what happens in Burundi following the president’s passing can be found here.
