Philippe’s farm sits at 1,800 meters above sea level in the lush, green hills of Rwanda’s Southern Province. The farm is managed by Philippe with the help of his wife, Angelique Muhayimana, and a number of seasonal workers who help during the coffee harvest.

Single producer micro-lots like this one are not common. In this case, it is made possible due to the size of Philippe’s farm, which totals 0.8 hectares and some 1700 coffee trees (making it over double the average size farm). Philippe is also a member of the Abahuzamugambi Ba Kawa Maraba cooperative (or Maraba), who operate their own dry mill where they can process smaller lots individually, whilst minimising cost and maintaining excellent quality standards.

In total, the farm produces around 6,000kg of cherry each year. Philippe’s coffee is processed at the nearby Kabuye washing station.

The team at Kabuye Washing Station take a huge amount of care in sorting and processing their coffee. They own their own dry mill which enables them to control quality all the way through to export.

Cherries are delivered to the washing station on the same day as they are picked and are inspected and sorted to ensure only the very ripest cherries are processed. They are then put into a floatation tank and sorted by weight (and any floaters removed) and pulped on the same day—almost always in the evening—using a mechanical pulper that divides the beans by weight (the heaviest usually being the best).

After pulping, the coffee is fermented overnight for around 12–18 hours and then graded again using floatation channels that sort the coffee by weight. The beans are then soaked for a further 24 hours before being moved toraised screens for ‘wet-sorting’ by hand. All water used during the processing comes from a natural spring with water from the mountains.

As with most washing stations in Rwanda, women do the majority of hand-sorting. This takes place in two stages—on the covered pre-drying tables and on the drying tables. Washed beans are moved from the wet fermentation tanks onto the pre-drying tables, where they are intensively sorted under shade for around six hours.

Next, the beans are moved onto the washing station’s extensive raised drying tables (‘African Beds’) for around two weeks, where they are sorted again for defects, turned regularly and protected from rain and the midday sun by covers, ensuring both even drying and the removal of any damaged ordefective beans. During this period, the coffee is also turned several times aday by hand to ensure the coffee dries evenly and consistently.