Gitoki Natural

Here for a short time not a long time. We have some bags available in our NYC stores but only a handful left at the roastery.

Prior to the construction of Gitoki washing station in 2020 there were no central collection points in the Gitoki sector of the Gatsibo District.

Emmanuel Rusatira is the managing director of Baho Coffee. It's hard to get a clear answer but as of our last conversation we have been told that Baho Coffee owns 10 washing stations across Rwanda - with at least one station in each of the 4 coffee producing provinces. In addition to providing a number of educational, financial and agricultural services to farmers, Baho Coffee also has several social programs that are geared towards helping farmers, especially marginalized groups like women, older farmers and youth.

Like much of the coffee coming out of Rwanda, this particular lot is a Red Bourbon. The coffee is selectively handpicked by farmers and their families and sold to the station. Staff sort cherry by hand and then float the cherry to check for density. The station accepts cherry that passes both visual hand sorting and floating.

This coffee has been processed as a Natural which is fairly uncommon in Rwanda. Most natural lots need to be pre-booked ahead of the harvest so the washing stations have time to allocate and select the cherry for processing. In the past, natural Rwandan coffees have, in a way, shown some of this inexperience in the cup but occasionally and more commonly in the last few years, we cup a standout lot like this one.

After physical grading and an initial float to clean the cherry and isolate density, the whole cherries are spread on raised drying beds and dried under shade for roughly 30 days, where it is sorted repeatedly.

The resulting cup is syrupy and fruity sweet. We get intense peach notes with big milk chocolate and that classic Rwandanesque dried berry/concentrated raisin in the finish. Speaking of the finish, this coffee finishes long after you've put the cup down. Enjoy!

Producer  → Local smallholder farmers
Washing Station  →  Gitoki
Location  →  Gatsibo District, Eastern Province, Rwanda
Altitude  → 1,700-1,900 masl
Varieties  → Red Bourbon 
Process  → Natural