Burundi Dry Process Murambi

Murambi is an impressive operation, run by Cassien Nibaruta in the Murmvya area near the Mubarazi river. The coffee processed at Murambi are from the surrounding hillside villages ("collines"), which there's talk of separating in the future, but this year was all blended together by day of delivery. Most of the farms are around 2000 meters above sea level and entirely planted in Bourbon. They mostly produce fully washed coffee using the traditional Kenyan method, but this is a dry process batch, often referred to as "natural". Dry processing involves leaving the cherry intact during the entire drying stage, which extends the time it takes to sufficiently dry the coffee to anywhere from 2 to 4 weeks. The impact of this process is often tasted in the levels of fruit, which can certainly be said about this lot. We found this lot to be on the brighter side though, which isn't always the case with dry process coffee. A few years back the station received a cash premium at the year's end for the coffees they exported, and the mill owner invested in 450 goats that were distributed to as many farmers who work with the station. The program is for the goats to both help with building out an organic farming system, as well as an added source of revenue for the farmers and is still in place today. Check out our slideshow from the Murambi wet mill, here.