This is the first coffee we’ve bought from Omwani, an exporter/ importer that focuses on East African coffees, they started out in 2018, initially focusing solely on Ugandan coffees and now also work with producers in Rwanda, Kenya, Burundi, Madagascar and Malawi. We first tried their coffees at a trade show in London last year, we cupped through a bunch of coffees with them and a few in particular really stood out to us. It's got loads of juicy bright notes as well as a bit of spice to it, with orange, cardamom, apricot and hawthorn. After ordering a few more samples and finding some we really liked, this one stood out as a really great example of a big juicy naturally processed coffee. We’re very happy with the coffee and excited about potentially finding a new importer to work with in that part of the world, particularly one with a solid reputation for fairness and transparency!
As with a lot of Rwandan coffees the name comes from the washing station. Rwamatamu is a washing station located in the Kibuye region, within the Western Province of Rwanda. The washing station is owned and operated by Rutaganda Gaston, his wife Laetitia, their daughter Marie Bernice and her husband Luke. In addition to the small family team they have 8 permanent employees and like many Rwandan washing stations buy cherries from many surrounding small hold farmers. In Rwanda, the government set the coffee cherry price and last year the minimum price for ripe cherries was set to 410 Rwandan Francs (about 28p) and for floaters (usually under ripe or damaged cherries) the price was 100 Rwandan Francs (about 7p). At Rwamatamu they set their price at 800 Rwandan Francs for ripe cherries (about 54p) and additionally started offering microloans for school fees and health insurance making it more attractive for people to sell their cherry to them over other washing stations. As Rwamatamu has grown it has developed from one wet mill into an exporter with a second mill called Mbare, as they grow and develop they will be able to reinvest in infrastructure and their community. One scheme they have that is very meaningful is they gift cows to farmers that provide exceptional cherry, in Rwanda cows are a prized gift as they provide food, extra income and a steady supply of fertiliser. Rwamatamu have given away 10 cows to individual smallholders as well as 2 to a local smallholder farmer co-operative.
Elevation: 1400-1700 metres above sea level
Varietal: Red Bourbon
Cup Score: 87.5
Price paid per kilo: £10.12 per kg