Tag: coffee newsletter

2020: the year in review.
What a year it’s been.

Lately, the thought of sitting down to reflect on the past year has felt like an overwhelming task. What really happened to 2020? It goes without saying that last year was unlike any other. For us, 2020 held challenges that were unique to the season and challenges that aren’t all that ‘unprecedented’ when it comes to producing coffee.

The year started off much like any other. Our team worked alongside our neighboring coffee farming communities, preparing coffee farms for the opening of the coffee season and expectant for a harvest better than the previous one. Everything seemed to be on track until the Burundian national coffee board announced a sudden change in regulations.

In order to qualify for an annual production licence, coffee producers were required to have 75% of their forecasted crop in the bank [to be held in trust to pay farmers]. Coming off the backend of a harvest where 25% of the country’s normal export was produced, having these funds in advance was unreasonable for most producers- ourselves included. If any coffee producers were unable to comply with the new regulations, they would lose their washing station(s) along with the permission to produce coffee ever again.

Scrambling to comply in time while the threat of a derailed harvest hung in the air made for a hard couple of months, but thankfully we were able to find a way. Then came the news of how rapidly the virus was spreading across the globe. Neighboring East African countries quickly plunged into strict lockdowns and the Burundi airport shut down. It was the first time in a long time that we had to ask visitors not to travel to Burundi for coffee harvest.

Image taken by Kristy J. Carlson for Imbibe Magazine.

The pandemic aligned itself almost perfectly with the start of coffee harvest. Our thoughts flew straight to: “How can we build protocols to keep the farming communities that we work with and the team safe while continuing to produce coffee?” In a country with limited access to testing facilities and healthcare, where the government enacted few official controls, and COVID-19 updates were mostly shared through the radio, we assumed both the best and worst for Burundi.

All things considered, there was still a lot of beauty and joy found in harvest. The coffee trees continued to fruit and ripen. With hand-washing stations and social distancing in place, we were able to keep the washing stations open for cherry delivery. We celebrated from both near and far with members of our team as they welcomed babies into the world, got married, and as their families grew. We were able to pay coffee farmers on time for their hard work this season! Coffee was exported from Burundi faster than ever before. We continued with the build of Ninga, our third Long Miles Washing Station. Long Miles Kenya was launched, and we saw our first inaugural coffee harvest season in Kirinyaga County, Mount Kenya take place. The seed has been planted and preparations are now underway for the formal launch of Long Miles Uganda.

The year was certainly marked by hardship, loss and a specific set of words constantly strung together. “Unprecedented.” “Uncertainty.” “New normal.” It was also a year marked by bravery and courage; community and connection. Thank you for standing alongside us; for continuing to support Long Miles Coffee.

What lies ahead for us.

In 2017, Ben was sitting with a group of people at The Pulley Collective and an esteemed presenter proclaimed, “There is no sustainable coffee in the world.” Ben was speaking right after him about the hope we see in Burundi coffee, but he approached the stage with the wind out of his sails thinking, “Is it really possible to create a sustainable coffee company?” Ever since that day our company has been combating the harsh realities of coffee’s future with visions of hope. And in 2020, not only was the future of coffee challenged, but the human race’s future as well. It’s been a tough time to keep hoping, but also an impossible time not to grip onto the ship of hope with everything we’ve got.

Here’s how we plan to keep hope alive in 2021:
1. A coffee farm in Kenya. We hope to start one. And that’s it for now.
2. This year we started a pilot project in Kenya and we have loved the results. We hope to continue this project and expand it in 2021.
3. We hope to build a community washing station and a model coffee farm in Uganda.
4. We hope to fully open our Ninga Washing Station in Burundi. It has taken three years for us to get government approval for this washing station. Farmers who currently spend hours walking to the Bukeye Washing Station will have their livelihoods vastly improved by the presence of the Ninga Washing Station. With a keen focus on coffee quality, we will be using newly designed sealable fermentation silos, one of the newest approaches to coffee fermentation.
5. We have plans for the expansion of Trees For Kibira, our reforestation and environmental impact program, within both Burundi and Kenya.
An additional founder’s hope is that we live out of a place of thriving, and support our team to do the same. We are not speaking about a place of great excess, but we have often lived in a place of survival only, cutting all expenses and depending on unreliable pre-financing methods to pay farmers and scrape by. While this can be an efficient way to produce coffee, the instability and stress of it doesn’t always honour the people on our team who work so hard to grow, produce, export and sell this product that we all love so much. We hold a deep belief that the only way to make coffee truly sustainable is to honour the value chain and everyone in it.

How do you plan to keep hope alive in 2021? We’d love to hear from you.
January 27, 2021
Long Miles Coffee’s Post-Harvest Update: news from the farm, field, and cupping lab
From the Farm

collected and translated by Joy Mavugo in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Long Miles Story team

There was much rejoicing at the Long Miles Coffee Washing Stations recently as farmer payday took place. Payday is always one heavy with anticipation, excitement, and chaos of the happiest kind. It’s the one day of the year when all of the coffee farming families that we work with receive payment for the coffee cherries that they delivered during harvest season.

“ Payment day is a special day. It’s a day of building trust between a farmer and a buyer.”

– Honorate Dugunya, a coffee farmer from Ninga hill.

In the days leading up to it, our team works hard behind the scenes filling every person’s envelope with the season’s earnings and preparing for one big reunion with the coffee farming communities that we work with. This year, payday may have looked different from how it usually does but our team is unwaveringly grateful that it took place. We also celebrated a milestone; making our first set of payments at the newly built Ninga Washing Station site.

“To have a washing station on Ninga hill is like a country that fought for independence and got it. I will always celebrate this victory. No one will take it from us.”

– Paul Ntahondi, a coffee farmer from Ninga hill

There is an endless list of things that we are thankful for this harvest season. Paying every single coffee farmer that we work with is one of them.

From the Farm

written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager for Long Miles Coffee

Frequently, I have referred to rain as a big challenge. We could lack it when it was expected and vice versa. For three months, from July to September, there was no rain as it was a dry season. Now we are at the end of September. October is knocking from the horizon. We have experienced some rain yet at Bujumbura and sometimes at Gitega, Budeca, where we took our coffee for dry milling. As coffee is not out on drying beds you may wonder why the blessing (rain) is evoked again as a challenge. In fact, the rain comes with cold weather, and humidity increases in warehouses. Thus, when the relative humidity is higher than that of coffee in storage, the latter start regaining moisture. As you can hear this, the end of one battle opens a door to the next. So, today we fight for having all the remaining lots milled, hand-picked, and sealed in Grain-pro as soon as possible. When all coffee is in Grain-pro, then we don’t have to worry about rainfall the same as before. This is the battle we will be fighting over the next couple of weeks.

From the Lab

written by David Stallings, Roaster Relations for Long Miles Coffee

This week we began our final dry-milling program for the Burundi season. Milling, which involves removing the parchment layer, or, in the case of naturally processed coffee, removing the fruit that has dried around the coffee seed, is, by itself, a speedy process. After the seeds are stripped of their botanical accouterment, they pass through various grading apparatuses. These include devices that separate the seeds by size, density, and color. Many metric tons of coffee can pass through the mill in a single day. The process that follows, however, is low tech and time-consuming. That process is, of course, the handpicking of the coffee. Absolutely critical to the production of top quality specialty coffee, our lots get handpicked upwards to five times! In a few short days, all of our Burundi lots for the year will have been milled. The next two to three weeks will be filled with handpicking the coffee.

It is a race to the finish from here. As Seth mentioned in his section above, we want to get the lots handpicked as soon as possible because that allows us to get them into Grain-pro and thus hermetically sealed and safe from the impending rainy season. Too frequently, as a green coffee buyer, I have seen the onset of a rainy season in any given country of production, as a strike against the quality of the green coffee. This is especially true for coffees that are on the margins of not being fully dried. Coffees for which taking on a small amount of moisture pushes them into territory that encourages the quick degradation of what we perceive as freshness. I am so pleased to know firstly, that all of our lots were dried exceptionally well this year and, secondly, that our timeline concerning getting these final lots into Grain-pro is looking very good.

Once this process is complete we will continue loading containers and sending them around the world. A record year for us, we have already loaded and dispatched two containers from this harvest. In a few short weeks that number will be seven. The past two years have been important ones in strengthening relationships with importing partners in various markets. While we work directly with as many of our roasting partners as possible, we have found it essential to have key relationships in various markets around the world. Not only are these partners service providers, moving the coffees from Burundi to their destination market, but they are also critical in helping facilitate relationships with smaller roasting partners. This year, our coffees can be found with the following importers:
- Osito Coffee, North America – East Coast
- Royal Coffee, North America – West Coast
- List & Beisler – Europe
- Upstream – Australia*
- Seven Oaks – South Africa
If you are in one of these markets and interested in coffee this year, please reach out to me. I will be only too happy to work on a plan with you to either send you samples directly or connect you with one of the above-mentioned importers. Whether we are sending you samples and handling contracts directly or having an importing partner help facilitate the process, it is so important to us that we connect with you personally and work together on and through the process!

*If you are in the Australian market and interested in coffees from this season, please reach out to our Burundi Lab Manager, Jordan, who was not able to make it to Burundi this year due to the pandemic, and is native to and currently located in Australia!
October 5, 2020
Long Miles Coffee’s Post-Harvest Update: news from the coffee farm, field and cupping lab
From the Farm

collected and translated by Joy Mavugo in conjunction with Robyn-Leigh van Laren from the Long Miles Story Team

The first of September usually means the end of the dry season in Burundi, and the start of the country’s second rainy season. During this time of the year, many communities of farmers usually shift their focus from coffee to other subsistence crops (such as maize, potatoes and cassava) that need to be planted by the time rain starts to fall.

“We have to hurry and finish everything before September because once the rain starts, there will be many things to do. You can’t work on activities meant for the dry season during the rainy season. My husband is supposed to be mulching and fertilizing the soil of our coffee plantations while I plant other crops, but he’s still busy pruning our coffee trees. I’ve had to stop what I was doing to help him look for mulch.”
Jeannette Ngendakumana is a coffee farmer from Gaharo hill

Meanwhile, some farmers are still focused on picking coffee cherries. Due to the irregular weather patterns that Burundi experienced this year, the country’s coffee harvest came to an end while many farmers still had unripened cherries on their coffee trees.

“Harvest might be over at the washing stations, but it’s still going on at home. There are many cherries that need to be picked. We are still in the dry season, and the coffee trees aren’t getting much water. The small amount of water they do get is being fed straight to the cherries that are still ripening and haven’t been picked. These leftover cherries also cause the number of antestia bugs found in the coffee farmers to multiply. The only way to prevent this is by picking them. Many farmers can’t accept losing so many cherries after harvest, so they continue to process coffee at home: picking, sorting cherries, hand-pulping and then drying. Coffee traders have permission from the government to buy parchment coffee at a fixed price from coffee farmers. I still have one hundred kilograms of coffee to sell.”
Joseph Haragasika is a coffee farmer from Gaharo hill.

From the Field

written by Seth Nduwayo, Quality Control Manager for Long Miles Coffee

Previously I talked about how our Lab in Bujumbura was pushing hard to have a lot of samples processed and dispatched at that time to David (in the States where the main Lab is based, because of the threat by COVID-19). Because of the hard work of the Buja Lab Team, our process chain was always active. And today, I am grateful for the step where we are at and I can congratulate Mr. Zebron (Long Miles Coffee Lab Assistant) for having delivered most of our expectations. This week, intensive Lab work was done. All the urgent samples were processed and dispatched to the Lab in the States. This is a good thing as lot construction becomes quicker and milling plans become definite. We can expect to see the activities moving in a faster way, from the beginning of September.

Liar or dreamer, I ignore what you will think of me. Having a container ready in August was done, as promised. But shipping should take place early September, which is good as the earliest, so far, we have been able to make is early October. The reason is that export paperwork is not a quick-do-it-yourself kit. In fact, when we had everything ready, an official in charge of issuing the grades confirmation certificate (taxation report) was out for three consecutive days. When he was supposed to come back, coincidentally it was a day off as it was an election day (for hill leaders). Even for other signatories, we observe similar delays and we never stop learning!

From the Lab

written by David Stallings, Roaster Relations for Long Miles Coffee

Image taken by Julianna Elizabeth Herr

Echoing Seth’s message, the busy days in the lab continue. It has been a pleasure to see much of the work from the last two months come to a point of fruition in the form of final, milled lot samples. The milling quality has been excellent and the coffees are so balanced and clean. If you have not received samples yet and are expecting them, do not fret. Our focus at this time is on moving lots through the process as quickly as possible, in order to allow milling and export to happen as quickly as possible. In the end, this will serve everyone in the supply chain.

I so greatly appreciate the tone of optimism and enthusiasm in Seth’s section of this week’s newsletter. The entire team has been pushing hard to move coffee as quickly as possible. Hours after Seth emailed me the copy for his section, however, we did run into what is currently a concerning situation. The dry mill which is contracted to mill and clean our coffees this year has been on strike. The strike concerns the mill owner and specifics surrounding former-employee pensions. In ever humbling Burundi coffee sector fashion, we are monitoring the situation patiently. A report I received just minutes ago relayed that the situation will hopefully be resolved early next week. That said, there is no way to know at this time. I will continue to use this space in these emails to update all of you concerning the situation.

As always, if you feel that you have not been heard regarding your needs for this season, please reach out to me!

Links worth checking out
- Long Miles Coffee featured in Imbibe’s article “How COVID-19 Is Rippling Through the Coffee World”.
- Ben Carlson’s two-part conversation with Coffee Radio Japan on founding Long Miles Coffee and the complexities of creating meaningful change in a system that wasn’t built for it.
- This New York times article: “ ‘Hotel Rwanda’ Hero, Paul Rusesabagira, Is Held on Terrorism Charge.”
September 7, 2020

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