Watch our Rwanda Mutovu video tour for an up close look at this coffee washing station in Nyamasheke that we’ve bought from for many years.
Right now we see the return of Nyamasheke Mutovu, a coffee we’ve been lucky enough to buy every year since the cooperative started up in 2012. Why do we consider ourselves “lucky”, you ask? To start, Mutovu is one of the most consistent Rwandan coffee 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... ...more stations we buy from in terms of a high cup score and flavor profileFlavor Profile implies a graphical impression of a particular coffee, whether it be an artistic portrait or data graph of the perception of flavor compounds. In the case... ...more. But luck has little to do with their success. The improvements they’ve made to both infrastructure and process are evident when we visit, and not doubt factor into their consistency as coffee producers.
Mutovu has been around for nearly a decade and is located in the Nyamasheke District near Nyungwe National Forest. The processing site sits at 1750 meters and the coffee is grown up to about 1900. It started out as a small cooperative owned by only a few local farmers who processed their own coffee as well as bought coffee from other farmers in the region. Mutovu sold a few years back to a private coffee company, though operation is still under the management of the local community.
Mutovu shows some of what we consider to be archetypal Rwandan coffee flavors (these often apply to BurundiBurundi coffee bears resemblance to neighboring Rwanda, in both cup character, but also the culture surrounding coffee. Burundi is a small landlocked country at the crossroads of East... ...more too); dark tea and spice notes, articulated acidityAcidity is a positive flavor attribute in coffee, also referred to as brightness or liveliness. It adds a brilliance to the cup, whereas low acid coffees can seem... ...more, and very well-balanced sweetnessSweetness is an important positive quality in fine coffees, and is one of five basic tastes: Sour, Sweet, Salty, Bitter, Savory (Umami). In coffee, sweetness is a highly... ...more. The varietal grown is BourbonA coffee cultivar; a cross between Typica and Bourbon, originally grown in Brazil: Mundo Novo is a commercial coffee cultivar; a natural hybrid between "Sumatra" and Red Bourbon,... ...more, which when cultivated at high altitudes has high potential for sweetness. The seeds are dense too, which lends to roast versatility and a coffee that functions well in many different brew applications.
Order a bag today on Sweet Maria’s, or Coffee Shrub
Tom put together a short video from his last visit to Mutovu in May, 2019. He shows us Mutovu’s workflow from whole 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... ...more to coffee drying on the beds and shares his thoughts on how small improvements at the mill have made a big impact on the cup. Mutovu is also C.A.F.E. Practices certified by Starbucks, which has meant an added layer of quality control, increased level of financial transparencyTransparency is a flavor characterization synonymous with clarity. It is also a business ethics term, implying that as much information as possible about a product is made available... ...more, and commitment to environmental stewardship and community.
Check out this blind tasting Tom did where he compares coffees from RwandaA Bourbon cultivar variant from Rwanda and Burundi. Bourbon coffees are named for the island in the India Ocean where French colonists grew it. Some history from the... ...more and Burundi to those from Central America. There’s more cross-over in the cups than you might think. This makes the timing of Rwandan availability attractive, as they come at a time when coffees from Central America are sparse.
View our entire Rwanda stock on Sweet Maria’s / on Coffee Shrub
Also see our article Congo Kivu Coffee Photo Tour
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