Before there was a Burundi Cup of Excellence there was something else called the Prestige Cup. I went, I cupped, I swam in the pool.
It’s weird for me to fly a long way, visit a beautiful coffee-producing country, and not visit a coffee farm. Well, this trip was out-of-season for the coffee harvest. It was a cupping
Cupping is a method of tasting coffee by steeping grounds in separate cups for discrete amounts of ground coffee, to reveal good flavors and defects to their fullest.... competition, which happens after all the coffee is off the trees and in the dry millA facility that accepts dried coffee cherry and mechanically separates the coffee bean from the dried fruit and parchment layer. The facility can be highly mechanized, as in... generally.
So my camera kept me amused and the coffee tasting event was solid. Here are some pictures from this 2011 event! -Thompson
It might have been a trip to some distant nebula. It was my second (fairly fruitless) Burundi trip of 2011. Well, later it seems, things started to work out. 
Each morning I made these beauties as a byproduct of my aeropress coffee making. Roast color reference for one round of cupping at Burundi Prestige Cup. Note all the prestige surrounding everything… Start of calibration round for the first ever Burundi Prestige Cup coffee competition, which may be a precursor for a Cup of Excellence next year. 
Always seeking to make a fashion statement, I brought some of my cutting edge USA umbrella hats to give away as Prestige Cup door prizes. 
Cows encourage you to eat them, but in French, so it’s more klassy. 
They say it is good. They say it is more primal, in touch with basic human feeling and experience. But thats sorta presumtive, eh? especially when you see things like this. We stayed at the swanky-est place in Bujumbura, rioght on Lake Tanganyika, which I went swimming in, and learned later you can get parasites from doing that. And they had a Jolly Shop. Sadly I missed Natacha, but heard some other groovy band practicing in the hotel. My aeropress dessert creation. Excitement with coffee and spoons, pencils and clipboards. A room full of horrible slurping sounds seems serene, no? Mother and son, very gentle ans surprisingly well-fed dogs. A puppy, he was very sweet. Pushing the envelope this time around. It was by the pool, so the suited guy who apparently has lost control of his bladder Just to make sure they have all the bases covered. Bujumbura Burundi Big Rig. 
Word, Burundi stylee. Some kid is going to come along and think those are candies there in a “Dolomite” serving bowl. On Lake Tanganyika south of the capital New meaning to the concept of a bread box. Headed south from Bujumbura on the Lake road. Bigger than computers, still no reception Welcome again… We went to a place to swim called Blue Bay. They write blue bay in colored mayonaisse on every plate. Just to remind you. Very beautiful, and swimmable, at Blue Bay. Less risk of parasites too. I told him how much I liked this shirt and if I could take a picture of it. In the morning, everyone was down by the lake, washing clothes, bikes, themselves … Burundi style fishing outfit Washing his bike in the lake at 8 am. She wanted a picture of her baby and herself. One of my favroite portraits from the trip THey are either dugouts or contructed like this… 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi 
Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi Canon 1n, Kodak T Max 400, Burundi
