Bright

The Bright Roast 

Origin: Rwanda

Process: Washed

Region: Karambi Mountain

Flavour Notes: Redcurrant || Peach || Honey 

Karambi Mountain Coffee

Just a few miles inland from Kirambo at the edge of Lake Kivu, is the Karambi washing station, named after the nearby village and surrounding sector. Tucked onto steep and largely inaccessible slopes, the site is just over 2.5ha.

Karambi was established in 2016 and RTC took ownership the following year. 4 staff are employed full time with the addition of 60 further staff during the harvest, of whom 90% are women. 1500 farmers contribute cherry to the station and all have successfully participated in RTC’s training program. Since 2017, annual production has doubled from 220 tons of cherry processed to an expected 400+ this year. The farms surrounding Karambi are all within 3 kilometres of the station, located on steep slopes. On average farms are 4ha in size, with approximately 8000 trees per farm.

The reason that production volume at Karambi was down this year is because the station shares local farmers with neighbouring station Gesharu. In many of Rwanda’s coffee growing regions, the government tried to ensure local farmers have access to supply chains through expanding the number of washing station facilities through the Coffee Value Chain Development Project, an initiative co-funded by the European Union. Consensus opinion seems to be that, while this creates more access and opportunities for farmers to sell cherry, it can be counterproductive for washing stations and exporters who must compete for volumes of cherry.

The station looked quieter in 2023 than in the past as they were struggling with low harvest volumes, so they focused on repairing unused beds and prepping the seedlings in the nursery. The station distributed 24 000 seedlings during the previous off season.