RWANDA NYAMIYAGA | March 2023

REMARKABLE BEAN FROM RWANDA

Our March Bean of the Month comes to us from Rwanda, a country known as 'the land of a thousand hills'.

Rwanda, located in Central Africa, is a country of great contrasts, with rolling hills building to high peaks and swooping down into deep valleys, and even deeper lakes.

Rwanda Nyamiyaga is just as striking: the ground coffee releases an intoxicating mix of red wine and quince aromatics.

The sophistication continues in the cup, fresh stone fruit flavours juxtaposed with heavy molasses sweetness, enlivened with a splash of bright cherry liqueur booziness and zesty lemon acidity.

COFFEE ORIGIN PROFILE

Rwanda - “The Country of a Thousand Hills” - is a landlocked country nestled in the East of the African continent. As its nickname suggests, it is a rolling country of high peaks and deep valleys, bordered to the west by the Great Lake Kivu, which is carved into the Rift Valley.

To call the landscape verdant is to undersell the expanse of rolling green, a study in contrasts between the wilderness of the extensive national parks and manicured acres of tea plantations.

Positioned as it is just south of coffee’s heartland, it may surprise you that it is tea, not coffee, which is the country’s cash crop. Coffee is still a niche business in Rwanda, with producers working together to grow the industry along with their harvests.

The Nyamiyaga Mill brings together over 2000 small lot farmers, each growing a few trees in their gardens. In the shadow of Nyamiyaga Mountain, they handsort and sun-dry their crops, using the traditional African natural process to infuse their beans with sweetness and fruit flavour.

These microlots are mixed into one batch to make a saleable quantity, thus the collective of farmers rise and fall together on the quality of their combined work.

This process has fostered a strong communal spirit within the local industry, with everyone sharing their knowledge and resources to consistently create the best cup they can.

TASTING NOTES

The first impression of Rwanda Nyamiyaga is a striking one - the grounds release a heady mix of quince and red wine aromatics, signalling the sophistication to come in the cup.

On first sip, stone fruit flavours prevail: fresh apricot, peach and plum. These sunshine-sweet flavours are given depth and richness with a heavy molasses note, which is in turn lightened and enlivened with a splash of cherry liqueur and zesty citrus acidity.

We often joke at the cupping table that “complex” is the word you write down when you don’t know what to say, but the Rwanda Nyamiyaga truly deserves the tag.

There’s a lot of flavours singing together, and this coffee is a wonderful twist on the traditional fruit flavours we’d expect from natural processing.

BREW RECOMMENDATIONS

Like the country it hails from, Nyamiyaga is a study in contrasts.

Brewed through an espresso machine it’s all big, bold, chocolate and cherry, like chewing on a Cherry Ripe. Vivid dark fruit flavours round off beautifully with the addition of milk, and the silkiness of the mouthfeel when tasted as an espresso serves as a reminder of why we chose a Rwandan coffee to give some smooth sophistication to our Zuri blend.

When roasted a little lighter, and brewed more gently as a filter coffee, the dark molasses note becomes more like black tea. The stone fruit and cherry liqueur hit the front with a riot of fresh sweetness bouncing around the cup, jostling up against the bright fizz of lemon zest from the acidity.

This is a coffee where it’s absolutely worth your while trying it both ways, and experiencing the difference.

COFFEE CUPPING OVERVIEW

SCORE: 85.5

AROMA: quince & red wine

FLAVOUR: stone fruit, cherry liqueur & molasses

ACIDITY: zesty lemon

BODY: delicate

AFTERTASTE: citrus.