Dukunde Kawa is a cooperative in the Gakenke District of northern Rwanda. It started in 2000 with a single wet mill and has grown to four washing stations and its own dry mill. More than 80 percent of the cooperative's workforce is women, and their earnings go back into healthcare, livestock, and environmental protection programs. Mbilima is where this coffee was processed.

The coffee comes from small family farms where plots aren't measured in hectares. They're measured by the number of trees each family owns. This lot is organic certified, grown on volcanic loam soil between 1,500 and 2,100 meters and processed through the cooperative's Mbilima station. The trees are local Bourbon cultivars, and the beans run a little smaller than usual.

Washed: cherries are depulped, fermented, and fully washed, then dried on raised beds. Taking the fruit off before drying leaves a clean cup where the acidity and sweetness of the seed itself do the talking.

Cupping notes: A very clean cup with bright, vibrant acidity, medium body, and a chocolate base. Herbal sweetness and delicate tea-like spice sit in the middle. As it cools the acidity settles and fresh apple and brown sugar come forward.

Resting: Best 14+ days after roast.

8 oz. / 227 g WHOLE BEAN

Country: Rwanda
Region: Gakenke District, Northern Province
Producer: Dukunde Kawa Cooperative
Varietal: Bourbon
Process: Washed
Roast Level: Light
Elevation: 1,500–2,100 masl
Tasting Notes: Chocolate, Black Tea, Citrus, Apple
Body: Medium

(Coffee is roasted weekly on Tuesdays, and sometimes Thursdays. Orders placed by 5:00 PM EST Monday are included in that week's roast and ship Friday. Orders placed after the cutoff will be roasted in the next cycle.)

Buku Abel is a village in the Guji Zone of southern Ethiopia, and this lot never leaves it. The cherry is grown on the farms around the village and processed at a single site right there, one that sits just above 2,300 meters. The plots feeding it run from 2,000 to 2,400 meters.

That site does dry process and nothing else. Heirloom trees, smallholder plots, one method run over and over until they have it down. This lot came off it at 100 bags, all Grade 1, and landed in July.

Natural Process: whole cherries are hand sorted on arrival, then floated to separate out the Grade 1 coffee. Those go onto raised African beds for about two weeks, drying down to 10 to 11% moisture. The station sifts for defects the entire drying period, not only at the front and back of it, and that is most of why the cup reads as clean as it does.

Cupping notes: Honeydew melon and ripe strawberry lead, fresh and aromatic instead of the heavy, rustic fruit a natural can turn into. Mango and citrus fill the middle. It finishes on amber honey with a honeysuckle lift, and dried date, plum wine, and Tej honey wine sit underneath it all. Cupped at 92.3.

Resting: Best 21+ days after roast.

8 oz. / 227 g WHOLE BEAN

Country: Ethiopia
Region: Buku Abel, Guji Zone
Producer: Hambela Buku processing site
Varietal: Heirloom
Process: Natural
Roast Level: Light
Elevation: 2,000–2,400 masl
Tasting Notes: Melon, Strawberry, Mango, Citrus, Honey

(Coffee is roasted weekly on Tuesdays, and sometimes Thursdays. Orders placed by 5:00 PM EST Monday are included in that week's roast and ship Friday. Orders placed after the cutoff will be roasted in the next cycle.)

Banko Chelchele sits in the Gedeb district of Ethiopia's Gedeo Zone, in the heart of the Yirgacheffe growing area. The station is run by EDN Ethiopian Coffee and works with smallholder growers, most farming one to two hectares, who bring cherry in for processing.

Anaerobic Natural: ripe cherry is sorted and sealed whole in tanks for 24 hours of anaerobic fermentation before moving to raised beds to dry in the sun for two to four weeks. The sealed fermentation before drying is what separates this from a standard natural, as it pushes the acidity and fruit character more forward than conventional sun-dried processing.

Cupping notes: Honey and strawberry lead, with a toffee sweetness underneath. Apricot and blackberry round out the fruit, and the cup carries a tannic, rounded structure through the finish.

If anaerobics usually put you off, read this part. Some of them come out loud and winey, almost boozy. This one has shown none of that during the first couple of weeks off roast. What it has is rich, juicy fruit and toffee that stays clean through the finish.

Resting: Best 28+ days after roast.

8 oz. / 227 g WHOLE BEAN

Country: Ethiopia
Region: Gedeb, Gedeo Zone (Yirgacheffe)
Producer: Banko Chelchele Washing Station
Varietal: Heirloom
Process: Anaerobic Natural
Roast Level: Light
Elevation: 1,800–2,200 masl
Tasting Notes: Honey, Strawberry, Toffee

(Coffee is roasted weekly on Tuesdays, and sometimes Thursdays. Orders placed by 5:00 PM EST Monday are included in that week's roast and ship Friday. Orders placed after the cutoff will be roasted in the next cycle.)