Musasa Mbilima Organic, Rwanda | ESPRESSO

The Musasa Dukunde Kawa cooperative has four washing stations lying high in Rwanda’s rugged northwest. Mbilima–the cooperative’s second washing station-was built by the co-op in 2005 with profits earned from their first washing station, Ruli, constructed only two years prior. Constructed at a vertiginous 2,020 metres above sea level, it is one of Rwanda’s highest washing stations. Most of the small holder producers with whom Musasa Dukunde Kawa works own less than a quarter of a hectare of land, where they cultivate an average of only 250-300 coffee trees each as well as other subsistence food crops such as maize and beans. The cooperative gives these small farmers the chance to combine their harvests and process cherries centrally. Before the proliferation of washing stations such as Mibilima, the norm in Rwanda was for small farmers to sell semi-processed cherries on to a middleman, and the market was dominated by a single exporter. This commodity-focused system-coupled with declining world prices in the 1990s brought severe hardship to farmers, some of whom abandoned coffee entirely. Today, it’s a different picture. Farmers who work with Musasa Dukunde Kawa have seen their income at least double, and the co-op produces some outstanding lots for the specialty market year after year. We have been buying coffee from the co-op for several years, with this being the first organic lot we are excited to share.