Burundi Kayanza Kibingo Station

Kibingo Station is a coffee cherry collection site located in Kayanza, Burundi's northern province that borders neighboring Rwanda. The washing station acts as a central delivery site for a few thousand small holder famers who occupy the 18 hills that surround Kibingo. Farmers grow mostly older bourbon types, the original coffee cultivar introduced to the area in the 1930s by Catholic monks traveling from the island of Reunion. Kibingo sits at just under 1900 meters above sea level, and many of the farmers have coffee planted much higher than this. Kibingo is named after reeds that are growing in the river running alongside the station site, planted in order to help keep the soil at the banks from eroding. They've been around since the mid 1980s, and Kibingo has enjoyed top placement at the Burundi Cup of Excellence competition several times. Kibingo roasts easily, very little roast color variance as you move from yellowing, to browning, and onto first crack. It helps that the sort is so good, with little to no trace of underripe coffee in the few hundred grams of coffee that we roasted.