Musasa is a town in the Gakenke district of northern Rwanda. The mill that processes the coffee is called Dukunde Kawa Musasa. The cooperative has over 2000 members, but when you realize that in Rwanda each farmer has less than 200 trees (they don't even talk in terms of hecatres or acres), this is not huge. Dukunde Kawa did well in the Cup of Excellence, and hopefully will have lots entered in the revived 2010 CoE competition later this year. The mill is at 2000 meters, with coffee grown at 1500-2000 meters at most. This means fairly cool fermentation temperatures when performing the wet process on the coffee, and long fermentation times. This, along with the careful cherry sorting before and after picking from the tree, and the Bourbon cultivar, greatly influences the Rwanda flavor profile. It\'s a coffee that has great classic character, sharing some aspects with Bourbon type coffees from Central America. The bean is dense; the flavors exist in a compact range, classic bittersweet balance, and a joy to roast. This was a very late lot with Fair Trade certificate, offered by the Rwanda Coffee Authority, OCIR, but arrived in great condition. We repackaged it in Grainpro to ensure freshness as well with this nice lot.

The cup is classic Rwanda. Dry fragrance ranges from floral and sweet (violets) to a more bittersweet chocolate from light to darker roast levels. I was really impressed with the sweet accents at the lighter ranges, and the wet aroma is very candy-like, saltwater taffy, caramel and vanilla, at City+ roast level. The cup follows suit; very sweet, caramelized sugars, cherry hard-candy notes, violet floral notes at the lightest roasts as well as tangerine/mandarin citrus. It's a cup that works well all along the roast spectrum, but I was so amazed by the lightest roast level (with 3 days rest after roasting, by the way) I must recommend keeping it as light as you can. The medium body has a silky mouthfeel, very refined and elegant overall.

This lot is from a cooperative washing station (a wet mill for coffee processing) in the region of Gikongoro, Nyarusiza, near Butare. It's part of the greater Bufcafe (Bufcoffee) coop ... however you put it, a clumsy name, But coops aren't about fancy romantic names, and Bufcafe had several top spots in the first-ever Rwanda Cup of Excellence this past year. Their coffees were consistently excellent, and I remember them well because I was there as a judge! And just to see the director of Bufcafe, a shy petite lady they call Epiphane, thunder down the aisle to claim the awards at the podium, it was worth the airfare to Africa! She is a force. This area, in southwestern Rwanda not far from Burundi, has some of the best coffee farming areas, featuring older types of the traditional Bourbon varietal. With a range of 1300 to 1600 meters, this lot of high grown Bourbon has a compact physical density that performs well in a variety of roast conditions, air roast or drum roast. The coffee is wet processed and dried immediately on raised beds in the African style, which promotes even, rapid drying (more-so than patio drying in many cases) because the air flows around the wet parchment coffee from above and below. It's ideal for this climate, and allows the coffee to be culled while it dries to remove defects. This is a classic Rwanda cup. The dry fragrance has a balanced sweetness, sweet bread and cinnamon, with spice tea dark aromas. Wet aromatics have rose-like floral notes, and caramelized cane sugar sweetness. This cup has lots of sweet mulling spices to it; dried orange peel, cinnamon bark, clove, allspice. There is sweet citrus in the lighter roasts, lemon oil, a bittersweet tea finish. It's very balanced; bittersweet roasty coffee flavors in proportion to fruit and aromatic grace notes. The body is not heavy, and yet it has a creamy texture to it, and there is a buttery quality that lingers into the finish. All of this adds up to a character much more restrained than a bright, flashy Kenya coffee, that has enough depth to discover new flavors with each brewing. Rose floral notes emerge as the cup cools. Keep tasting it, and you will find more to like in this lot... at least that is my experience. Contrary to other East Africa coffees, I think the Rwanda benefits from a little more roast, City+ to Full City, because my lightest City roast samples had a slight grainy note and astringency in the finish.