Burundi Coffee Overview

When Sweet Maria’s first offered Burundi coffee, it was from Kayanza, Ngozi and Kirimiro areas. But this was in the old government operated “Sogestal” system. The government operated all the washing stations and controlled coffee at all levels of the supply chain. The system worked for producing larger volumes of washed (wet-processed) coffees for sale to coffee traders, but not as a model to gain increased prices in the marketplace or higher payments to farmers.

Burundi “liberalized” coffee over time and sold off former sogestal stations. Some still continued to operate though, and some new coops were formed as well, along with private washing stations developed by locals or investors from Bujumbura. 

These days we source coffee from relationships formed over the years, and from a variety of sources. We have Kayanza coffee coming largely from farmer cooperatives, and others by private stations, but ones that operate a bit like coops, offering farmer benefits like a shared second payment.

History of Burundi Coffee 

Coffee farming does not have an extraordinarily long history here, as with the other Lake region coffees of East Africa.  The first ArabicaArabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the taxonomic species name of the genus responsible for around 75% of the worlds commercial coffee crop.: Arabica refers to Coffea Arabica, the… coffee tree in Burundi was introduced by the Belgians in the early 1930s and has been growing in the country ever since. Coffee cultivation is an entirely smallholder-farmer activity with over 700,000 families directly involved in coffee farming. 

Their combined total acreage is roughly 60,000 hectaresWe use this metric term often to discuss the size of coffee farms. 1 Hectare = 10000 Square Meters = 2.471 acres: We use this metric term often… in the whole country and planted with about 25 million coffee trees. In fact the rural population was legally obligated at one time to plant coffee; 50 trees per farmer. Burundi has struggled through the upheavals of decolonization and horrific civil war / genocide (reporting on this was sparse compared to neighboring Rwanda). And Burundi still has one of the lowest per capita incomes in Africa. 

This belies the stunning beauty of the place and the warmth of the people. The reorganizing of the coffee industry, with a revitalized cooperative system as well as private farms and mills, has echoed the development across the land. With so many lives linked to coffee production, gaining a better price for a better quality of coffee seems like an obvious improvement, and few places have the potential for great quality as Burundi.

Burundi Wet-Processing And Burundi Coffee Farming

Burundi is traditionally a wet-processed coffee, with stations often employing a two-stage fermentationFermentation in coffee processing traditionally referred to the stage in wet-processing of the coffee. We now understand that fermentation happens more broadly in nearly all processes, including honey… method as you might find in Kenya. Their practices in coffee wet-milling are definitely good, provided they are followed. 

If the coffee that is selected includes unripe cherryEither a flavor in the coffee, or referring to the fruit of the coffee tree, which somewhat resembles a red cherry.: Either a flavor in the coffee, or…, a good washing stationIn Rwanda and some other East African countries, a wet mill is called a Washing Station.: In Rwanda and some other East African countries, a wet mill is… will ask the farmer to sort these particular cherries out. The under-ripe coffee can still be submitted separately at some stations and often are purchased for the same price in order to avoid penalizing the farmer. (This needs to be considered in terms of quality – stations that pay on different scales based on quality of cherry selection motivates the farmer to pick better).

Many washing stations have large concrete basins where the farmers immerse the coffee cherry, skimming off “floaters” – seeds (aka green beans) that have failed to mature. Floating the coffee cherryOriginally coffee literature referred to the fruit of the tree as a “berry” but in time it became a cherry. It is of course neither. Nor is the… is a great step towards a better quality cup. In my experience the first 12-36 hour fermentation is done without water (aerobic fermentation) and the second fermentation is done under water (anaerobic), but this can vary from station to station. 

The washing station is perched on a slope and the coffee is washed from the first, higher tier of fermentation tanks, and on down a channel where mucilage is agitated off the coffee.  It then lands in a second strata of concrete tanks, where it is left submerged in water. Then there is one final wash as the coffee passes down a concrete channel, and is taken to either “skin drying” beds or full sun beds, where the eventual hand-picking removal of defects will take place. 

In Rwanda, much coffee is still “home processed” and bulked for sale as “Ordinaire” or “Ordinary Coffee”. In contrast, Burundi created the Sogestal infrastructure and did not permit home processingThe removal of the cherry and parchment from the coffee seed.: Coffee is either wet-processed (also called washed or wet-milled) or dry-processed (also called wild, natural or natural… of coffee by the farmers.

Burundi is primarily planted with Bourbon variety, which is grown at high altitudes ranging from 1250 to 2000 meters. Also similar to Rwanda, smallholder farmers of Burundi tend to about 50 to 250 trees. Historically, coffee from the area was sold as bulked “Ngoma Mild” coffee (Ngoma is a traditional drum). 

The farmers would bring their coffee to local washing stations, which along with 20-30 other wet mills, made up the Sogestal. All of the coffee collected from the Sogestal members would be blended, and separating qualities was not possible.

Several years ago the coffee market was “liberalized”. This meant that individual washing stations could now keep coffees separate, and then market the individual lots to buyers by station, “day lots”, or processing batches. With this comes the new possibility to find gems that were formerly mixed in with the not-so-good lots. So new possibilities are emerging in Burundi, and it is a coffee to watch.

Like Rwanda, the specter of “potato defect” haunts this coffee. It is so named for the flavor of uncooked potato found in the affected cup. It is caused primarily by a coffee-boring insect that makes a hole into the fruit on the tree and damages the green bean. 

The pyrazine-based compound that causes the potato taste enters the coffee fruit and binds to the green seed as a result of this damage, and it appears that other physical damage to the fruit on the tree can cause this taste as well. But farmers that manage their trees well, harvest all the ripe cherry, and do not allow cherry to fall to the ground, will have much lower incidence of potato defectA cup taint with the strong smell of raw potato, caused by a bacteria that then triggers a pyrazine reaction, resulting in the off flavor. This affects coffees….