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!
Like in any culture, there are no absolutes that apply to everyone. There are many Burundians who do drink coffee, but generally they are not the farmers who grow it. Whenever we ask coffee farmers if they’ve tasted their own coffee, the response is the same almost every time:
“NO, BUT I WOULD LIKE TO.”
Coffee trees grow almost everywhere in Burundi’s higher elevation ranges, but coffee beans are hard to find outside of niche markets in the capitol city. The coffee cherries are too valuable for most farmers to keep and dry for home consumption, so the coffee crop goes to a washing station where it can make cash on the kilogram. It’s a common daily ritual for farmers to drink a glass of fresh milk or a thermos of hot tea, but almost never coffee. This might be because when Burundi was a Belgian colony, Burundians were forced to grow at least 50 coffee trees but never had the opportunity to drink it.
Coffee arrived in Burundi with the Belgians in the 192o’s. Growing coffee wasn’t a choice for Burundians from 1933 until Belgian rule fell away in 1962. When it did, many farmers ripped out their coffee trees, choosing instead to plant subsistence crops like bananas or cassava. Those who kept their coffee trees did so with little enthusiasm for coffee itself, having seen very little compensation for their efforts under Belgian rule. War, political uprising, a monarchy, democracy, and global warming have followed in the decades since. It has only been since the early 2000’s that producing specialty coffee has become a focus in Burundi. With such a turbulent past, it’s no wonder that farmers have had little opportunity to taste their own coffee. We wanted to change that for a farming couple named Philippe and Sabine.
Philippe and Sabine live on a piece of land tucked underneath Gitwe hill, a stone’s throw away from Heza. They grow just shy of 500 coffee trees in between a sea of tea plants and banana trees on a piece of land inherited from Philippe’s father- a coffee farmer before them.
Have you ever tasted your coffee?
“Never.”
What do you think it tastes like?
“It must be nice, otherwise you wouldn’t ask us to keep growing it.”
How do you feel about learning how to make coffee today?
“Excited. When we have cherries again, we’ll be able to make it ourselves at home.”
A wood-fire takes less time than coal to heat up a traditional Batwa pot
It was hard work brewing coffee with Philippe and Sabine in the hills where it’s grown. There are coffee farmers the world over who spend their days caring for this precious crop they might never get the chance to taste. It makes one realise that it’s a privilege to be able to buy, brew and drink coffee so easily in other parts of the world every day.
Last week our small (and growing) LMCP team had some amazing victories. We have been pushing hard for many months to export our farmer’s Burundi coffee. It has been a loooooong road here in Burundi, my people. The road included acquiring 29 stamps and signatures on documents from 14 banks and governement offices. There were a few tears, I cried the first time I found out that one of our export documents needed to be typed meticulously on a very specific archaic typewriter, and that there are only two of these typewriters available in the city. No word documents… only a specific typewriter would do. What do you say to that?
Twenty-nine stamped and signed documents later, we took some time to see our coffee through it’s final stage of being bagged in GrainPro for it’s journey across the world.
Wasn’t this kid just 4 yesterday? I still can’t believe I have a 7 year old.The bag jumping kid is the afternoon entertainement.^Do you see him? He’s a seriously good hider. Burundi coffee in all it’s glory.I love warehouse light, it’s strange but true. A quick chat with LMCP’s new head of logistics, John. Poor Myles, by this point he’s had it because he mis-jumped. Whoops ; ) Happens to the best jumpers out there ; )Truthfully, a fancy forklift is a pretty amazing sight in Burundi.…and this Burundi coffee is outta here! Sigh. of. relief.
We ventured out into rural Burundi as a family last weekend to make early payments to the coffee farmers who are delivering coffee cherries to the new washing station. For weeks, the farmers have been delivering their coffee cherries to collection points we’ve set up near their communities. It’s one of the reasons you’ve heard so little from us, we’ve been busy building the station and organising community coffee delivery to the station. Coffee is one of the few ways these communities make money, and most farmers have to wait until October or as late as December to see any money from their hard work.
Last year, the average coffee farmer in Burundi earned $133 for the entire year. We are trying to change that number for the better in a number of empowering ways. Giving farmers an early payment for the coffee cherries that they have delivered to the Long Miles washing station not only builds trust with the community but it also allows farmers the opportunity to have some funds to get them through the lean months until full payment arrives towards the end of the year.
Each farmer has a card detailing how much coffee they have delivered to the station so far. Goat brochettes anyone?
^ Hello! This guy had me at first glance. The minute I saw him I knew I had to find a way to photograph him. There is always a crowd.
We were busy checking out a pig (in the wooden cage to the right) while farmer payday got underway. Getting organized.All tuckered out. Thanks for the photo, Coffee Guy, because one of my goals is to get IN FRONT of the camera more so that my boys remember I was there!
You can buy Burundi coffee that supports the washing station build and the coffee farmers delivering coffee to the station from Dogwood Coffee. They are donating $4 a bag towards the Long Miles Coffee washing station. Thanks Dogwood!
We are too tired to move or write much after today, but WOW what progress in our first day building this coffee washing station here in rural Burundi. Thanks for all the well wishes friends, we FEEL them. Thank you!
If you would like to support this project by drinking coffee, please buy Dogwood Burundi coffee online or in store. They are giving $4.00 PER BAG back to building this washing station. Thank you Dogwood Coffee!
Following @kristyjcarlson on Twitter and Instagram gets me excited about being part of this family of four that has their hearts set on helping a community in rural Burundi produce amazing coffee. I’m so happy to be a part of it.
Building a coffee washing station in Burundi has meant taking on an obscenely huge amount of challenges and obstacles on the way to realizing the dream. Let’s just say accomplishing something like this in Burundi has few more challenges in it than building that lemonade stand in Wisconsin when I was six.
For months now we have set our sites on building this coffee washing station. Finding the perfect location was key to making it a success. After 3 years of sourcing and cupping Burundi coffee, I knew where we needed to be. The place we were looking for was sitting in the middle of a triangle of the best coffee washing stations producing the best coffee in all of Burundi. Besides the best coffee, it was a place where farmers are too far to carry their coffee to the nearest station forcing them to sell to local buyers at ridiculously low prices. It has one river, bringing plenty of fresh clean water to run the de-pulper. Sitting at the perfect altitude with a micro-climate that is unique and ideal for producing the kind of coffee that makes you (ok, maybe just me) go weak in the knees.
Three years to make certain of this specific spot. Months to get all the paperwork done and meet all the farmers to explain the vision. Weeks to get all the signatures of the owners of the land willing to sell and the neighboring farmers as witnesses. Then, on the last day before signing, we find out that two of the five farmers don’t feel like selling anymore.
What do we do? Tomorrow we go back to the land to talk to the farmers. The area co-op president and commune elder have talked through our vision and are coming with us to make sure that the farmers know the kind of impact this station will have on the lives of all 2,500 families in the four surrounding hills. If they still decide they don’t want to sell are we back to square one? No, the commune elder said that we can have the two hectors next to the spot we want that are owned by the commune. The rivers the same, the slope is great, and the view is stunning. He gets the vision. He has caught hope. He tells us that they will do whatever it takes to see us partner with them.
We have found our spot and started to put down our roots. This challenge is just one of many in our way, but if it was easy we wouldn’t need to do it, it would already be done. Am I Worried? No, but we are weeks away from starting to build on land that we still don’t own with money we still have not raised… It will all happen though, it will all happen.
We are beginning something that makes our family pretty close to giddy.
Giddy is really not my thing.
I’m the Midwestern American stoic type…
(with a strange leaning towards living room dance parties).
But this….
This project makes me want to stand up on a couch somewhere and shout “Yes!”
What is it?
We are opening a coffee washing station. Let me explain just why this is SO EXCITING! Coffee farmers in Burundi grow coffee in small personal plots. Each plot ranges in size, but most are about half the size (or smaller) than the typical American backyard. On this small plot families grow EVERYTHING that they need to survive for the year. They might have coffee, banana trees, corn, beans, and manioc all on the same plot. My hubs, the Coffee Guy, explains a bit about what a washing station does:
The washing station’s main purpose is to remove the coffee seed from the skin and fruit and dry out the seed to prepare it for hulling and export. For great tasting coffee the washing station has to do much more. Without a well run washing station within a few hours walk farmers can expect a barely livable wage with little to no chance of premiums. Too long a distance or poorly operated and marketed stations destroy any hope of long-term relationships with buyers. Direct trade relationships with roasters and western importers are the key to help create a stable and sustainable source of income for the 2,000+ smallholder farmers surrounding each station.
How will it help people?
We have identified a potential washing station spot surrounded by 2,500 coffee farming families. In order to deliver their coffee cherries they currently need to walk 9 miles over slippery mountain slopes with the coffee cherries on their backs. Because the nearest washing station is so far, often their coffee is fermented and useless when they finally deliver it.
We are asking God to change their story into one of hope. The start of this change will be the building a coffee washing station close to the homes of these 2,500 coffee farming families.
We believe this project will be a launching pad for initiating positive change in this community. Our big dream is to see the transformation of this community from one that is barely living week to week into one that is safe and thriving and fully fed. Employment, clean water, better education, farmer education, technical skill building, women’s sewing projects, orphan care, food security projects and most importantly the transforming power that having HOPE in the future and in a real and caring God can bring.
Will you help us build it?
We are looking for donations to make this project possible. To give, click the donate button on the top right of this blog.
Amount Needed: $40,000
Amount Raised: $14,420
If you would like to give towards this project, we are offering the following gifts as a thank you for your involvement.
Donors over $100 will receive:
A set of postcards depicting the washing station and its farmers.
Donors over $500 will receive:
2 lbs of Burundi coffee
Three 12×12 prints of the following: the coffee, the farmers or the station itself.
Donors over $1,000 will receive:
5 lbs of Burundi coffee
A 12×12 gallery wrapped canvas wall hanging of one of the following: the coffee, the farmers or the station itself
A set of postcards depicting the washing station, the coffee and its farmers
Donors over $5,000 will receive:
8 lbs of Burundi coffee
A set of two especially chosen (12×12) gallery wrapped canvases or one 16×20 gallery wrapped canvas. Canvases will depict one of the following: the coffee, the farmers or the station itself
A DVD box set of Season 1 of the Long Miles Coffee Project TV show (airing soon)
Good things come to those who wait! Please keep in mind that your DONOR GIFTS WILL ONLY BE SHIPPED IN 2014. We are asking for your patience as we focus all of our energies on launching this project.
Donations can be made by clicking the PayPal button at the top of this site. Interested in donating but still have questions? We will be answering any questions in the comments section below or email me at kristy@longmilescoffee.com.
I love it under the coffee trees. Don’t you? We’re off to the coffee hills again tomorrow. I’ll be photographing more of the harvest process and Coffee Guy will be talking with farmers and making sure the coffee cherries are being processed correctly .
I can’t wait. Being among the coffee trees re-connects me with the very reason we made such a dramatic move in the first place. My boys run free in their gum boots in the middle of Africa and my heart swells a bah-zillion times.
The bag jumping kid is the afternoon entertainement.
^Do you see him? He’s a seriously good hider.
Burundi coffee in all it’s glory.
I love warehouse light, it’s strange but true.
A quick chat with LMCP’s new head of logistics, John. Poor Myles, by this point he’s had it because he mis-jumped. Whoops ; ) Happens to the best jumpers out there ; )
Truthfully, a fancy forklift is a pretty amazing sight in Burundi.
…and this Burundi coffee is outta here! Sigh. of. relief.
Each farmer has a card detailing how much coffee they have delivered to the station so far. 
Goat brochettes anyone? 
^ Hello! This guy had me at first glance. The minute I saw him I knew I had to find a way to photograph him. 
There is always a crowd. 
We were busy checking out a pig (in the wooden cage to the right) while farmer payday got underway. 
Getting organized.
All tuckered out. Thanks for the photo, Coffee Guy, because one of my goals is to get IN FRONT of the camera more so that my boys remember I was there!
We are too tired to move or write much after today, but WOW what progress in our first day building this coffee washing station here in rural Burundi. Thanks for all the well wishes friends, we FEEL them. Thank you!
Following @kristyjcarlson on 
