Bernadette pruning the coffee trees on her family’s farm.
Bernadette is a partner coffee farmer from Munyinya hill in Burundi. She is also a member of the Kerebuka Coffee Association that encourages women involved in coffee to know their value. Her earliest memory of coffee was planting it together with husband just after they got married, to help raise their family.
What is your role in the coffee supply chain?
I am a coffee farmer.
What does a ‘’typical day’’ look like for you?
I spend my time doing farm work on our family’s land, and looking for food. I was also chosen by the government agronomists to supervise the agricultural activities happening on Munyinya hill.
Are there any challenges that exclude women from working in coffee?
From my experience, men often minimize a woman’s value. They say that we’re not able and we just accept that. We know that we are able, but the problem is that we’re scared to show our capacity. In Burundi, women have to wait for the men in our families to make the decisions. This is one of the reasons why I encourage women living on Munyinya hill to go to school. People who go to school have confidence.
An example that I can share is that some women in our association have had the courage to ask their husbands for their own coffee farms so that they can earn their own money. By doing this, they don’t have to rely on their husbands when deciding how this money should be spent. Unfortunately, some of these women still have to wait for their husbands to decide how to use their money.
What does gender equity in coffee look like?
The number of women in coffee is limited, and this needs to change for there to be gender equity in coffee.
Is there anything that you would like to learn or do to further your understanding of coffee?
No, I’m getting too old. I don’t need to learn more things.
Written by Robyn-Leigh van Laren in collaboration with ROEST Coffee
Every step that coffee takes in the process from seed to cup impacts its quality. Ensuring coffee quality at every touch point has been a steep learning curve for the Long Miles Coffee team, and is something they are continuously learning to improve with every coffee harvest that comes to pass.
“Could we actually produce specialty coffee in Burundi?“
The Carlson family at Bukeye Washing Station.
When Long Miles’ co-founders, Ben and Kristy Carlson, moved to Burundi in 2011, they quickly realized that the most central place to see transformative change in the lives of coffee farmers and the quality of their coffee was at the washing station. In early 2013, the Carlsons built Bukeye, the first Long Miles Washing Station, with the underlying goal of answering the question, “Could we actually produce specialty coffee in Burundi?”
That same year, Lauren Kagori (née Rosenberg), a PhD candidate from South Africa, joined the Long Miles Team as their first Farmer Relations Officer. Kagori’s role was to understand coffee farmers’ relationship to the washing station. As they began to build trust and work with the coffee farming communities around the washing station, it became clear to Kagori that farmers’ greatest challenge to coffee quality was the lack of access to inputs: fertilizer, lime, mulch, and to some degree access to loans to pay laborers to work on their farms.
“You don’t just engage with farmers a month or two before harvest. It’s a year-round effort.”
Lauren Kagori, Long Miles Coffee’s first Farmer Relations Officer.
By the end of their first harvest, Long Miles produced only eighty bags of coffee- just a quarter of a container. Needless to say, the coffee didn’t taste very good that year and many roasters rejected the lots upon arrival in the United States. “We learned that you don’t just engage with farmers a month or two before harvest; it’s a year-round effort”, Kagori explains.
This was a turning point for Long Miles. They had built a washing station, invested in a community of smallholder coffee growers, and grown a team of people. But there was an obvious limit to the return on their investment if they didn’t invest in bottom lines that went beyond profitability.
Improving Coffee Quality on the Farm
The Long Miles team came up with all sorts of innovative ideas to help guide farmers on how to improve their coffee’s quality. The first set of interns spent hours perusing local paint stores for the exact shade of red that resembled a ripened coffee cherry. The idea was to paint the bases of woven baskets that farmers generally use to collect hand-picked coffee cherries. It quickly went from baskets to dipping small wooden chips in the same red paint that farmers could easily slip in and out of their pockets to compare their ripening cherries against. Back at the washing station, a borehole was drilled so that their team could start processing coffee with clean groundwater instead of water from a nearby river.
Around that time, another challenge was rising, both at the farm level and on the cupping table: the Potato Taste Defect. It took a trip to visit an established coffee producer in Rwanda and interviews with Long Miles’ partner roasters to realize that Potato Taste Defect was a real issue- not just in Burundi, but in neighboring coffee-growing countries too. That’s how the Long Miles Coffee Scouts came to be.
Led by Epaphras Ndikumana, Social and Environmental Impact Leader at Long Miles, the Coffee Scouts guide partner farmers through the cherry picking process on their farms while also scouting for and removing any antestia bugs (the insect linked to the Potato Taste Defect). The Coffee Scouts also encourage farmers to practice floating cherries at home and then again at the washing stations. Standing side-by-side with farmers at the washing stations, the Scouts help to hand-sort their cherries for ripeness and visible defects. Back on the farm, they distribute indigenous and shade trees to partner coffee farmers, encouraging them to plant green manures to improve soil health, mitigate climate change and the productivity of their coffee trees. The Coffee Scouts have been pivotal in improving the quality of Burundi coffee, and the Potato Taste Defect has since become increasingly less common on our cupping tables.
“The activities of our social projects help partner coffee farmers to improve their agricultural practices which increases the productivity and quality of their coffee in the long run”, Ndikumana says. He has done extensive research on how to improve the productivity of Burundian farmers’ coffee trees and soil health, initiating programs like the PIP approach (translated from French as ‘Integrated Farm Plans’) and Farmer Field Schools within the farming communities that Long Miles works with in Burundi.
Long Miles’ Coffee and Quality Production Manager, Seth Nduwayo, adds to this by explaining that, “Our protocols, standards and communication are the most powerful tools that help us to produce quality coffee in a systemized way. We don’t only make efforts to perform well but try to make sure we perform more consistently while also aiming to improve our performance.” Ensuring coffee quality quietly continues long after harvest has ended at the dry mill. Nduwayo and the Long Miles team spend weeks at a time, following their coffee through innumerable quality steps at the mill: from hulling to grading, density sorting, handsorting, weighing, and eventually loading containers for export.
Green grading and sample roasting
On the other side of the world, David Stallings, head of Roaster and Importer Relations, ensures that coffee goes through meticulous quality steps once it reaches the Long Miles Coffee Lab in North America. He starts by measuring the water activity, performing a moisture and UV analysis of the coffee weighing and then roasting each sample using our ROEST. All the relevant physical data about each sample is documented before the process is repeated over and over again before samples are sent to their roasting partners across the globe.
During coffee season, Stallings typically processes and on ROEST around 120 samples a week:
“The ROEST sample roaster may be the most perfect small-scale machine yet designed to explore the many different aspects of coffee roasting that I learned about through various roasting systems. The capability to develop profiles based on different parameters and the machine’s ability to develop coffee remarkably evenly, coupled with its ease of use and maintenance, make it an essential tool in my professional life.”
It would be remiss not to acknowledge that there is countless research, processes, and tools, like the ROEST sample roaster, used at every touchpoint along coffee’s journey, but ensuring the quality of Long Miles’ coffee really comes down to people. Each coffee farming family that Long Miles works with. By continuing to listen to their thoughts and understand their challenges and needs, they continue to put steps in place to improve the quality of their coffee. The team of Coffee Scouts, working tirelessly throughout the year guiding partner farmers on best agricultural practices. It’s every member of the Long Miles team, investing in the long-term impact of smallholder coffee farmers in East Africa and the coffee they produce.
Written by David Stallings, head of Roaster and Importer Relations
As an industry, the term “coffee processing” refers to how we remove the seeds from a coffee fruit. How any given coffee is processed is important because of the fact that processing can have a strong impact on the flavors found in the finished cup of brewed coffee.
Though we colloquially refer to coffee as “beans,” this is botanically inaccurate. Coffee is the seed of a fruit. To be more exact, the coffee fruit is a drupe or stone fruit. Unlike other stone fruits, such as peaches or cherries, which possess relatively large mesocarps (the pulp or edible portion of these fruits), the coffee fruit possesses an incredibly small mesocarp. This means that the coffee fruit is not particularly well-suited to being eaten (by humans or even most animals). Through the ages we have, of course, found an equally pleasurable use for this fruit: coffee seeds are removed from the fruit, after which they are roasted, ground, and brewed into the decoction known as coffee.
Coffee Processing
We can talk about two broad categories of coffee processing: coffees that are pulped prior to drying and coffees that are not pulped prior to drying. Here, “Pulping” refers to removing the leathery skin of the coffee fruit, along with some fruit mucilage.
Regardless of the method used to separate the seeds from the coffee fruit (i.e. regardless of how the coffee is processed), it is critical that the coffee seeds be dried. As with many produce items, coffee seeds that have not been adequately dried could develop mold. Further, proper drying is critical for retaining the freshness of the coffee for the longest possible period of time. If a coffee is not properly dried, it could taste “old” (papery, woody) much faster than if the coffee was dried properly. As such, and interestingly enough, the terms “age” and “old” are fairly relative in coffee and have more to do with how a coffee is tasting, as opposed to how long it has been since the coffee was harvested. A coffee that is three months off harvest can taste “old” if it was not dried properly, while a coffee twelve months off harvest can still taste quite fresh.
Natural Processing
Coffees that are not pulped prior to being dried are typically referred to as Naturally Processed or Dry Processed coffees. To produce a Naturally Processed coffee, which happens to be the original processing method (due to its innate simplicity), one simply harvests the (ideally ripe) coffee cherries and dries the entire fruit. The coffee then remains on drying tables until the target moisture content is reached.
During this time the coffee fruit is turned at regular intervals to ensure even drying and to avoid any pockets of moisture from remaining that could encourage microbial proliferation. Naturally Processed coffees tend to be very fruit-forward and sweet, generally with lower perceived acidity. The distinctly fruity flavor profile of these coffees tends to be polarizing: some people absolutely love the character while others find it off-putting. Though ostensibly simple, producing clean Naturally Processed coffees is incredibly challenging. We wrote about that fact in this Instagram post back in November of 2020.
Fully Washed Processing
Coffees that are pulped prior to being dried can fall into two primary categories: Fully Washed and Honey. Fully Washed – also known as Washed, or Wet Processed – is the older and more popular of these two processing methods and involves pulping the fruit and then placing the mucilage covered seeds into a tank and allowing the mass to ferment. The fermentation taking place is dependent upon microbes found in the air and on the coffee plant consuming the sugars of the coffee fruit.
Yeasts and bacteria break down the sugars of the mucilage and the stubborn pectin layer immediately surrounding the seeds. After these layers are broken down, the mucilage is easily washed away and the coffee seeds, still covered in a protective parchment layer, are sent to drying tables to be dried to the target moisture-level. Fully Washed coffees tend to be clean, balanced, and present a sparkling acidity that can drive and inform the perceived sweetness in the finished cup.
Honey Processing
Existing somewhere between Fully Washed processing and Natural processing, the Honey processing method (also referred to as Pulped Natural) was developed by coffee equipment manufacturer Pinhalense in the 1990’s. The goal was to produce a coffee that struck a balance between the sweet, heavy-bodied character of a Naturally Processed coffee and the balanced cleanliness of a Fully Washed Coffee.
Honey processed lots begin by being pulped, like a Fully Washed process coffee. After pulping, however, the coffees skip tank-fermentation and mucilage removal and head directly to the drying tables, mucilage and all. A bonus of this processing is the small amount of water used when compared to Fully Washed coffees. We wrote about Honey Processed lots in an Instagram post back in November of 2020. That post can be found here.
When produced carefully, Honey processed lots can be very clean and elegant. In our experience, however, they can also lack both the fruited complexity of a Naturally processed coffee and the expressive acidity of a Fully Washed coffee. Over the past two years we have experimented with various ways to produce Honeys that remain clean but are also more expressive. We will share more about those processes in an upcoming blog post!
A conversation with Long Miles co-founder, Ben Carlson.
It’s always been our vision to be transparent about coffee harvest and production in Burundi. While our mantra is to hold on to hope despite any challenges we might face, the realities of this year’s coffee harvest has stretched our team and the coffee communities that we work with.
Why was coffee harvest in Burundi small this year?
BC: It’s a complex answer. Like our friend and former Managing Director, Lauren Kagori (née Rosenberg) likes to say, “In Burundi, simple is complex and complex is simple.” Overall, there are four things that I would say contributed to the size of Burundi’s harvest this year.
Soil health. The World Bank recently released a report focused on unpacking climate fragility in Burundi. According to their research, Burundi loses almost 38 million tons of soil and 4% of its gross domestic product to land degradation every year. Half of the households in the country depend on coffee for their livelihoods. The coffee sector alone brings in 90% of the country’s foreign revenue, but over the last forty years severe soil erosion has led to a two-thirds decrease in coffee production, pushing millions back into poverty;
Fertilizer. We can’t access fertilizer in the country, and it’s illegal to purchase it outside of Burundi. You can only purchase fertilizer from one semi-privatized company in Burundi, but they don’t produce a fertilizer meant for coffee. Usually, we have to place an order for and purchase fertilizer through Burundi’s national coffee board, ODECA (translated from French as “Coffee Development Office”). From our experience, the delivery of fertilizer is always delayed and never available in the quantities that we need;
Rain. It’s apparent and out of our control. The rainy season in Burundi typically runs from the end of March/beginning of April through May, but over the last three years the rains have stopped just before May. If we had healthy soil and fertilizer, the rain could have stopped and the impact on the coffee crop might have gone unnoticed;
Old coffee trees. A majority of the coffee trees in Burundi were planted between the 1930s and 1960s under Belgian colonial rule. The newest coffee trees were most likely planted in the 1980s. We’re talking about coffee trees that are about forty-years old! Generally speaking, coffee trees should be replaced every fifteen to twenty years. When we introduced our inaugural pruning campaign and encouraged partner coffee farmers to stump their older coffee trees, it was incredibly difficult to get them on board. It still is! Up until that point, stumping coffee trees was unheard of.
“In Burundi, simple is complex and complex is simple.”
What did we expect this coffee harvest, and what did we actually get?
BC: We expected 1.2 million kgs of harvested cherry. The reality is that we might have reached 500,000 kgs. That’s less than 50% of our expected production, which means 50% less revenue for the farming communities that we work with. Added to this, we’re coming off the back-end of a low harvest in 2020 which means that coffee farmers in Burundi should have experienced a peak in production this year. This all goes back to cyclicity. In 2019, we hit 20% of our average production. In 2020, we hit 50%. This year, the country as a whole hit between 40-45% of its average production.
We were hoping to do more controlled (anaerobic-styled) fermentations using our newly shipped Jacky Bin technology, which we’ve ended up doing but not in the quantity that we expected. With shipping delayed worldwide, our Jacky Bins took much longer than expected to get from Australia to the Dar es Salaam port. They then needed to be trucked from Tanzania across the border into Burundi where they took a couple of weeks to clear customs before our team could eventually collect them. Needless to say, the Jacky Bins got to our washing station a few weeks shy of the end of harvest. We missed the mark there, but are excited to grow this side of our coffee production in the future.
Our goal was also to increase the number of coffee farming families that we work with to maximise our impact, but the number of farmers delivering to our washing stations this season has actually declined. Most farmers across the country have produced between 25-40kg of cherries this season. When you’re producing this amount of cherry, it’s not worthwhile processing and delivering to any washing station.
Is this an issue that just Long Miles is facing?
BC:No, this isn’t a Long Miles thing. It’s happening to coffee producers country-wide.
BC:Over the last two years, there’s been a new coffee authority, ODECA, regulating the coffee sector. This kind of turnover happens regularly in Burundi. ODECA has taken over a majority of previously privatized washing stations. With the last three years being low production years, farmers haven’t delivered high yields to their washing stations which means that ODECA hasn’t processed much coffee. Added to this, privately and co-operative owned washing stations were paying a higher price than semi and government-owned washing stations like ODECA’s.
In what we presume is an attempt for them to find more equity, they banned transit centres. This has meant that washing stations have had to collect coffee only from the farmers adjacent to their stations, or those farmers willing to travel further to reach them. In some ways, this is helpful as there’s a better concentration of coffee and farmers who have more direct access to the market.
This is no surprise, but Burundi is a landlocked country. We’ve often faced challenges to get coffee out of the country timely, but in times like these it can take even longer to export coffee. We also can’t dry mill coffee on our own. Applying for a dry mill licence is surrounded by incredible bureaucracy and red tape in Burundi, and there aren’t many options when it comes to where we can mill our coffee. In previous years (this one included), our team has travelled the country looking for options. The dry mill that we’ve previously used is struggling to renew their licence this year, and there are a landslide of challenges that follow suit from this.
“…this isn’t a Long Miles thing. It’s happening to coffee producers country-wide.”
What does all this mean?
BC: This is possibly our best harvest quality in the nine years that we’ve been producing coffee in Burundi. The improved quality of our coffee could be due to the low harvest over the last three years. If you were to draw a comparison between coffee and wine production, this kind of thing sometimes occurs on wine estates that are producing wine from older vineyards. We’re really excited about the coffees that we’ve produced and are working with the same hills, but the reality is that we’ve produced smaller micro-lots this year.
Sourcing coffee is also a unique challenge this year. Previously, we’ve sourced coffees from neighboring producers that have stood out to our team on the cupping table. This year, coffee is limited country-wide so it’s looking like sourcing coffee won’t be possible.
“The sobering reality is that our combined coffee production in 2019, 2020 and 2021 don’t add up to our coffee production in 2018.”
Our team is trying their best to make sure that all our partnering roasters get coffee, but we’re not going to be able to meet everyone’s demands this year and expect to be able to offer less coffee across the board. The sobering reality is that our combined coffee production in 2019, 2020 and 2021 don’t add up to our coffee production in 2018. Knowing the realities of coffee production in Burundi, we’ve recognized the need to be versatile which is one of the reasons why we’re expanding our operations in Kenya and Uganda.
Even thought this year’s coffee harvest has been challenging to navigate, we are incredibly grateful for the coffee communities that we work with and the continued support from our roasting partners across the globe. Thank you. We’re excited to share this year’s coffees with you!
Do you have any questions about this year’s coffee harvest in Burundi? Please get in touch with us!
In Burundi, a washing station (or wet mill) is a communal space. It doesn’t just belong to those who build, own or manage it, and it’s not just a place for coffee farmers to deliver their coffee cherries to. A washing station is a sign of development within a community; a landmark where neighbors can gather, use it as a meeting place, find jobs, and often collect water.
“Seeing a washing station gives us hope. Before there was nothing, no building – it was only a hill.Now, there’s a washing station and mzungus are buying coffee. We continue seeing change and new building, and it gives us hope that the future will be good for the community.”
– Lucien, a partner coffee farmer from Camizi hill.
There are so many things to take into consideration when building a washing station. Does the area have a reputation for growing coffee? Is there a need for it? Is there suitable land available? What impact will its existence have on the environment? Will it be profitable? More, but not most importantly, is there an available water source?
Coffee simply cannot exist without water. Not only is water important for the growth and development of a coffee seed and plant, it’s necessary for processing coffee. The quality steps of floating and rinsing coffee cherries to pulping, grading, fermenting, and soaking parchment coffee wouldn’t be possible without an abundance of water. Of course, the importance of water is another conversation when it comes to cupping and brewing coffee.
Getting clean water in large quantities to the Long Miles Washing Stations has been a challenge for us over the years. When Heza opened back in 2014, we were sourcing water from two catchment areas on Gitwe hill. We shared a water source with the communities living around the washing station, but struggled with frequently broken pipes causing an insufficient supply of water to flow to Heza. We tried everything from fixing the pipes to recycling the water before finding a new water source four kilometers away, and pumping water from there to the station.
Umuhini mushasha, utera amababa.
“A new handle leaves you with some pain in your hand.”
– Raphael Kayembe, Managing Director of Long Miles in Burundi.
This Kirundi phrase has stuck with us because it seems to aptly describe the blistering and bruising it took our team to get Ninga, our new washing station, fully operational in time for the season opener this year.
In 2019, after purchasing the land where Ninga Washing Station would eventually stand, we worked with consultants to dig a well and install a hand-pump to access clean water. With our water source in place, we turned our focus to the build out of the station. It was only when it came to installing and connecting our McKinnon depulper to the water pipes that we realized the well wasn’t deep enough to access clean groundwater at the quantity and quality that we needed. Although community members had been collecting water for washing clothes from the pump since the day it was installed, it wasn’t suitable for cooking or drinking, let alone processing coffee.
We tried adapting the initial drilling, installing a new pump, and making tweaks to improve the water’s quality. The original pump was supposed to produce 3m3 of clean water per hour but through the redevelopment we found that it was only producing 1m3 of unclean water per hour. At 40m deep, the pump was still getting blocked with mud. Even after disassembling and cleaning it, the water that flowed from the pump was littered with pebbles and sand.
With the coffee trees starting to ripen and farmers anxious about having to deliver their harvest elsewhere, we couldn’t delay the opening of Ninga any longer. Without a fully operational washing station at this point, we made the call to start collecting coffee cherries from partner farmers and processed our first sun-dried Natural micro-lots of the season.
Behind the scenes, we continued exploring every alternative water source in the areas surrounding Ninga Washing Station for over a month. The sources that we could find were too far away to connect to (some fifteen kilometres from the washing station), had a low outflow of water or were already at capacity. After a lot of consideration, we bit the bullet and contracted a new consultant to perform a new drilling. It was our last hope.
Following a week of drilling, we found that clean groundwater was flowing at 65m deep. Without really realizing it, the doubt that we could get this fixed in time had been niggling away in our mind and we had been holding our breath for weeks. It was the sight of clean, flowing water that finally allowed the team to collectively let out a sigh of relief. With the hardest part behind us, we were fortunate enough to find all the additional parts in the country: the drill, electric pump, and pipes.
Not only have we been able to produce Fully Washed and Naturally processed coffees at Ninga Washing Station this season, but the tap has been opened to the neighboring communities once again for water collection. We’re especially excited about the anaerobically fermented micro-lots that we’ve processed using our new Jack Bins. Despite the challenge of water this harvest season, the quality of our Ninga coffees is looking like our best year yet!
Have you got questions about our current (2021) crop of Burundi coffee? Please get in touch with David Stallings, head of Roaster and Importer Relations at Long Miles Coffee.
“I have young sons who must have stolen the camera and taken pictures without me knowing.”
Damien is a seventy-seven-year-old coffee farmer from Nkonge hill in Burundi who seems to carry his walking cane, worn leather hat and good sense of humour everywhere he goes. The last time that Damien held a copy of his photograph was when he applied for his national identity card in the early 1960s.
He waved his cane wildly in the air a couple of times when talking about his photos, laughing at himself when he couldn’t quite make out what he had tried to capture. “I have young sons who must have stolen the camera and taken pictures without me knowing,” he told us while flicking through his stack of printed photos for the first time. Damien comes from a big but tightly-knit family. He has over thirty grandchildren, and the youngest love walking to his house to spend time with their sokuru1.
“In our family, everyone helps with coffee. During the coffee harvest, we all pick our coffee cherries and carry them to the washing station.”
My grandchildren and neighbor’s children. They were playing together, and I asked them to raise their hands so that I could take their photo. I enjoy playing with my grandchildren. They come to my house to play. I can also ask them to help me with things if my wife is not at home, like fetching water.
My house is on the left. These clothes were out to dry. We use tree branches to hang our clothes on.
My grandchildren are in this photo. They were playing with the neighbors’ children when they asked grandpa to take a photo, then others came who also wanted to be in the picture. I enjoy having a big family. We are close and have good relationships.
Beans are very important in Burundi. I think all over the world they are eating beans. We eat more beans than Rwanda.
This cow belongs to my niece. It has its own room in their house. It’s really fat, which pleases me.
My neighbor was sitting in front of his banana trees. He took this position just for the photo.
Footnotes
Sokuru (Kirundi: grandfather)
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process, but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
When she was just sixteen years old, a student named Emilienne fell in love and dropped out of school, choosing marriage over her schoolbooks. In 1993, just four years later, she tragically lost her young husband to the civil war ensuing the assassination of Burundi’s first democratically elected president. Emilienne was five months pregnant with their third child at the time.
“Family is very important to me. When I lost my husband, my mother and brothers helped me with everything.”
Burundi still has ways to go when it comes to the laws underpinning a woman’s right to inheriting, controlling and owning land. She put up an incredible fight when her in-laws tried to chase Emilienne and her two young girls out of her late husband’s home. With a loan from her mother and the support of her brothers, Emilienne was able to buy a piece of land and build a bigger home for her growing family.
“My favorite thing about being a mother is that when you have children, you are not alone.”
It was years later when she would meet Salvator, a widowed coffee farmer from a neighboring hill. Despite living apart from one another for several years, Emilienne and Salvator have since raised four children together. They still walk to see each other every day, and are waiting until their eldest children are married before moving in together.
The last time I had a photo of myself, I was seventeen years old. It was a picture taken by a priest, but stolen during the war. I will keep this photo in my house and always look at it.
I built this house alone. I am proud to have this big house because when I got married, we were living in a small house. My mother helped me by giving me a loan and I am still paying her back.
My son Irakoze’s chickens. He took this picture.
A poster in my brother’s house. It’s beautiful. Hanging in front is paper from notebooks that we cut to make decorations. My son learnt how to make them at school.
My brother’s son and daughter. Family is very important to me. During my single life, my brothers helped me so much.
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of vision of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process, but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
Apollinaire has grown coffee for more than four decades but rarely had the chance to taste it.
“I only drink coffee when they give it to us at the washing station. Coffee is sweet. I like it more than tea.”
Like many other coffee-farming parents in Burundi, Apollinaire has gone to great lengths teaching his children how to grow and care for coffee. “Children don’t want to grow coffee because they know that their parents have already planted it. They’ll wait until we are no longer around to farm our coffee”, he sighs. “In general, young people are lazy and don’t enjoy farming that much. They are different from older people.”
As the head of three coffee farming associations and an active member of other community-based projects, Apollinaire is also a leader in his community. “It was the first time that I’d heard of farmers having cameras and taking photos,” he says, “but I know that when I show people the photos that I took, it will bring them much joy and happiness.”
At my brother’s house. I took this because I knew I would be getting it back. The last time I had a photo of myself was when I got my identity card in 2005.
A coffee plantation. The cherries were red and ripe. Athanase, my friend, is on the bicycle. He was borrowing it so that he could deliver his coffee to the washing station.
My cow. It’s very important to me. It gives me fertilizer and it will give birth soon. I’m happy because then I will have milk to sell and give to my grandchildren.
These are small zucchinis that I planted in my coffee plantation. We eat the root and the leaves, but they also protect the soil.
My big tea plantation that has been stolen by my cousin. We went to court and I won the case, but my cousin’s workers are still picking tea in the plantation. This is something that hurts me, but I hope in the future I will have it back again.
This is where we sell our tea and it gets put in the truck. I drink it, but coffee is sweeter, and I like it more than tea.
“Before + Now” is dedicated to bringing the voices of marginalized coffee farmers into the field of everyday coffee consumers. It includes a series of photographs made by coffee farmers in Burundi, East Africa as well as a large-format portrait of each farmer. This series makes it possible not only to see life in East Africa and the coffee process, but also to connect clearly with the dreams, fears, and hopes of coffee farmers. Read more about “Before + Now” here.
We’re often asked the question, “How do I begin working with Long Miles?”
Irrespective of your size or location, the process always begins the same: Talk to us. Whether you are buying one bag or five containers, we want to know you. Few industries are as relational as coffee and we take this element of our industry very seriously – it is our sincerest pleasure to do so. The best way to be in touch is to email David Stallings, who handles Roaster and Importer Relations.
Regardless of where you are located and how much coffee you are looking to source from and/or through Long Miles, our goal is always the same: To interact directly with you and to keep you connected to a transparent and equitable supply chain.
Once you reach out we will schedule a phone/Zoom call or continue the conversation over email, whatever is best for you and the time zones we find ourselves working to reconcile. Together we will discuss your needs in many areas: The types of coffees you are looking for, the volumes of coffees you are looking for, and more. From there we will work together on a plan that works for your business. This can look any number of ways. Typically one of two primary paths will be decided upon:
Roasters purchasing less than a full pallet (ten bags) of coffee from any given origin in any given year are typically referred to our importing partners – more on this below. In most cases and markets, our importing partners take a certain amount of Long Miles coffee into their position specifically with the intention to service our smaller clients. This is not done, by any means, to “hand-off” smaller roasters. In fact, we began operating this way to make sure that our one bag clients were receiving the exact same level of care and attention as our largest clients. As coffee farmers, producers, and exporters, we are not expertly suited to handling sampling and contracts for the smallest of our partners. We remain, however, 100% committed to these partnerships and are available by email, phone, WhatsApp, etc., at any time in order to make sure you have the tools necessary to represent Long Miles coffees in the marketplace. As stated above, regardless of size, we want every partner to be and feel as connected to the supply chain as they wish.
For roasters buying ten+ bags from any given origin each year, you will liaise directly with David for samples, etc. At the appropriate time, David will connect you to our importing partner in your market for contracting, etc.
Once the coffee leaves the country of origin, the primary contact for all things logistics-related will be the importing partner to whom you were introduced by our team. These critical partners will see the coffee safely from port to port, oversee the legal process of getting the coffee into the country/region of delivery, and oversee the logistical process of getting the coffee from the port and into a warehouse. Finally, they will be your primary point of contact for releasing the coffee from the warehouse, paying for the coffee, and seeing that the coffee gets to your business. All of that being said, our team remains at your service throughout the entire process. Whether you have a question about the current state of the coffee or a question surrounding information related to the coffee itself, we are and always will be here for you.
David Stallings, head of Roaster and Importer Relations. Photo by Julianna Stallings.
To better understand why we operate as we do, it may be helpful to note something about who, exactly, Long Miles is. As owners and operators of washing stations in multiple East African nations, we are coffee producers. As owners of farms, we are coffee farmers. We are also coffee exporters. There are other labels that can be applied to Long Miles in East Africa but these are the most important for the sake of this guide.
It may also be helpful to make clear what Long Miles is not. Most notably, Long Miles is not a coffee importer. There are a number of implications associated with this. Firstly, and most importantly, we partner with importers. We are frequently asked questions such as, “Can we buy directly from you and not involve an importer?” The simple answer to that is, “No, that is not possible.” It’s not possible because it’s not legally possible. Unless you live in the country in which the coffee was produced, it must be legally exported by an entity and it must be legally imported by another. There is no way around this. The closest thing that we can do to not involve an importer is to air freight our coffee directly to you. Even then, someone is technically importing the coffee, whether that be your business or a representative you hire. Furthermore, while there are legitimate reasons to occasionally air freight coffee, it is by no means a sustainable approach to coffee logistics – economically or ecologically.
Secondly, the importing partners we work with differ from market to market. We partner with companies based on a certain set of criteria: A general alignment on vision surrounding the purported goals of specialty coffee, the degree to which key roaster partnerships in the market endorse the importer, how expert the importer is in that particular market, how reasonably priced the importer is, etc. No single one of these is the most important factor under consideration. Rather, we weigh each of these points and consider the complete picture. If you are of the size that you are purchasing full or near-full container loads, our logistics team would be more than happy to liaise with an importer of your choice.
The third implication of not being a coffee importer is the fact that we do not typically have an Offer List, nor are we always able to clearly answer questions surrounding the exact final price of any given coffee. We will always be able to tell you the price to purchase the coffee from the country of origin, as this is the price we sell the coffee to importers for. That said, importers provide a service – and no small one at that. Not only are they handling global logistics, they also finance the coffee from the time that it leaves the country of origin to the time your roastery or business takes possession of it. There is a cost associated with shipping, importation, customs clearance, etc., and then the importer also needs to include a margin to cover their own expenses and to make a small profit. On top of all of this, coffee is nearly always bought and sold in U.S. dollars. If your roastery is located somewhere in the world where you will be invoiced in a currency other than USD, then of course the exchange rate and the exact time of the currency exchange needs to be taken into consideration, as well. We do know, generally, the prices charged by our importing partners and will do our best to provide a reasonably accurate quote upon request. Furthermore, we will be more than happy to connect you with our importing partners in order to get an exact logistics quote.
We are writing this post in early June, 2021. The Burundi harvest season is just beginning to ramp up. As such, if you are interested in beginning a relationship with Long Miles Coffee, and particularly if you are interested in purchasing Burundi coffee, now is the ideal time to reach out and make a plan surrounding this harvest.
