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COFFEE BIOGRAPHY
Kibingo Washing Station sits in Kayanza, Burundi, just a few kilometers from the Rwanda border. Coffee here is collected from over 3,500 smallholder farmers, each cultivating an average of just 300 trees on roughly a tenth of a hectare.
The station's name carries some local tension. Construction was originally planned on Kibingo hill itself back in 1978 by a Belgian named Desmet, but accessibility problems and a regulation barring washing stations within seven kilometers of one another forced the project onto two neighboring hills, Kirema and Kinga. Despite the move, the station kept the Kibingo name (from ikibingo, a local tree) rather than taking on the name of either hill it actually occupies. The people of Kibingo hill take pride in the name; the people of Kinga believe their hill deserves the credit, especially given the station's strong showing in Cup of Excellence over the years. It's a rivalry that's never quite been resolved, but it hasn't stopped the two communities from bringing in cherry together each harvest.
Harvest runs April through June, but as a landlocked country, Burundi's coffee has a long road to export. This lot was processed at the BUDECA/SIVCA dry mill before making its journey to us.
We featured coffee from this station in 2022, but that was the natural process lot. This time around, we're featuring the washed version of Kibingo, and we’re hoping everyone tastes clean,malic fruit notes like apple and plum and a bit of spice.
