Producer: Gahahe washing station
Region: Kayanza Province
Altitude: 1,650-1,900m above sea level
Varietals: Bourbon
Gahahe Washing Station is located in the province of Kayanza and was established in 1989. Farmers here own less than half a hectare of land, on average, and in addition to growing coffee, they also grow crops like bananas, beans, yams, taro, and cassava, both for sale and for household use. There are 1740 farmers that deliver to this washing station. Each farmer has roughly 240 trees on about a tenth of a hectare of land.
Due to the small size and yield on the average coffee farm or plot, washing stations are the primary point of purchase for Burundi. Unlike other coffee-growing regions in Central and South America where landholdings are slightly larger and coffee-centric resources are more available, most producers do not have space on their property or the financial means to do their wet- or dry-milling. Instead, the majority of growers deliver cherry to a facility that does sorting, blending, and post-harvest processing of day lots to create different offerings.
Like many of its neighbors in Africa, Burundi produces microlots almost by default. Each farmer owns an average of less than even a single hectare and delivers cherries to centralized depulping and washing stations, SOGESTALs (Sociéte de Gestion des Stations de Dépulpage Lavage), and it may take more than one producers’ delivery in order to create a lot.
This purchasing style makes it nearly impossible, if not completely impossible, to arrive at single-producer, single-farm, or single-variety lots. Instead, coffees are typically sold under the appellation of the washing station.
Depending on the leadership and management at the stations, both private- and state-run, the attention to detail in the processing makes a big difference. Meticulous sorting, fermenting and washing are necessary to create quality and uniformity among the coffee. The typical processing method in Burundi is somewhat similar to Kenya, with a “dry fermentation” of roughly 12 hours after de-pulping, followed by a soak of 12–14 hours in mountain water. Coffees are floated to sort for density, then soaked again for 12–18 hours before being dried in parchment on raised beds.
