Rwanda Kanzu

The Story Behind the Coffee

The growing conditions around Kanzu washing station are ripe for growing specialty coffee. It is home to the biodiverse Nyungwe forest with rich volcanic soil, good rainfall and altitudes up to 2200 masl. Deforestation is protected by the Nyungwe National Forest. This forest collects cloud cover, creating a unique misty microclimate that slows cherry maturation and protects the trees from climate extremes. 

Kanzu produces 4 to 6 containers of excellent coffee per year. The station is working with 535 farmers. These farmers are also registered under certification programs like Rainforest Alliance and trained in best practices. This helps to promote sustainable farms with dependable quality year over year. 

At the washing station, the cherries are sorted by flotation. This serves two purposes, removing unripes while also removing any insect damaged cherries. The cherries are then pulped and fermented in two stages, 16-18 hour dry fermentation followed by 18 hours soaking. The coffee then goes through a pre-drying phase that they call skin drying - this pre-drying prevents the coffee from cracking under full sun conditions. During this skin drying, further sorting is completed by hand to remove further visible defects. The coffee is finished on raised beds to dry.