Rwanda Dry Process Karongi Gitesi

Gitesi is one of our favorite sites in Rwanda. Not only is it located in a beautiful lush valley, but the washing station is always so clean, well-organized and the leaders seemed motivated and competent. When we visited the Gitesi site last year (2024), we saw they had made many improvements to the mill, including installing a new Penagos 1500 pulper. They also started processing naturals and anaerobics, in addition to their fully washed coffees. This is a natural/dry process lot, a first for us from Gitesi! We were quite impressed with the berry character that came through in the cup, and found a fairly bright acidity for dry process coffee. The Gitesi site is at 1740 meters, actually one of the lower areas surrounded by high ridges ranging up to 2000 meters where coffee is grown. When farmers deliver their cherries, it is first floated to remove any unripe coffee that floats to the top. The ripe coffee that sinks is moved to drying beds as Grade 1, while the coffee that floats is processed as a lower grade. It's this kind of quality separation that helps Gitesi consistently produce some of the best quality we see out of Rwanda. More than 1,800 coffee farmers in the area supply Gitesi with cherries each year. The station fosters a relationship with the farmers by paying an additional dividend at the end of each season based on performance. Gitesi was started in 2005 and has been building capacity with each passing harvest.