Description
* Warning – small beans, bean fragments, and a higher defect level.
We were super excited for our new Burundi arrivals, unfortunately this one did not come in the best. The pre-ship was a wonderful screen, the arrival did not match. The good news, the taste is decent. We were a little surprised it tasted as good as it did when looking at the green. Medium to dark roasts, a classic example of African coffee, bold and spicey, nutty/chocolaty with some herbal overlays. Lighter roasting did work, but when the cup cools it turns a bit earthy/vegetal.
This lot comes from the 394 smallholder farmers organized around the Nyamahiti Coffee Washing Station, in the Tangara commune of Ngozi Province (Butanyerera), in northern Burundi. This is smallholder country, where most families work just one or two hectares and deliver their ripe cherry to the station for centralized processing. The station organizes intake by delivery day and by origin, a common practice in Burundi where the hills themselves are used as units of organization and traceability.
We are at roughly 1,570 masl, on volcanic loam soil, a classic northern Burundi combination that yields clean, bright, well-bodied cups. The variety is local bourbon cultivars, the historic backbone of the region’s coffee, harvested between March and June. It is the same band of altitude and the same genetics that put Ngozi coffees right up there with the better high-grown East Africans.
The process is fully washed, done in the traditional Burundi style. After depulping, the parchment goes through a double fermentation (a dry fermentation of around 12 hours followed by a wet fermentation), gets washed in clean spring water, and is graded by density. From there it moves to raised African beds, where it dries in the sun for roughly two to three weeks while being hand-sorted to remove any insect-damaged beans or visual defects. That slow, hands-on work is what gives this coffee its cup cleanliness and crisp acidity.
Tasting Notes: An African that drinks best from medium to dark, so start there. The acidity isn’t intense or overly citric, it leans more floral, and while it eases off with the roast it never fully drops out. The cup is driven more by the chocolate side, with good cacao and a touch of green tea that gives it that clean, fresh African feel. It carries a medium body right from the start, this is not a light cup. At a medium roast it sits balanced, with chocolate and cacao up front, soft floral tones and that green tea peeking through, and a lingering hint of dried apricot. Pushed toward dark it gains intensity and turns deeper and more chocolaty, without going over the top, more intense but still well within the range of a good African coffee. This is where we like it best, somewhere from medium to dark.
Roasting Notes: Easy to roast and low chaff, no big tricks. The one thing to keep in mind is that the beans run a bit small, so it’s worth backing off the power a little so they roast evenly and don’t scorch on the outside. We’d recommend starting from medium to dark, which is where it gives its best: chocolate, cacao and that green tea backbone with a medium body. If you want it more intense, push it toward dark and it’ll hold up nicely, well within that classic African character. Like many high-altitude beans it looks one shade darker than it really is, so go by sound and aroma rather than color.
Jeff Logullo (verified owner) –
Wow – this was a great one! After a full day or two to let it set up, this was really tasty. A little snap and a peppery (?) note.
I have two regrets: first, that I didn’t order more… and second, that I didn’t roast a sample immediately to realize how good this one was, so I could order more before it was gone!