Rwanda Shanga Simbi washed

The coffee is hand-picked in three successive rounds to ensure only perfectly ripe cherries are selected. After pulping, it undergoes washed processing — starting with wet fermentation and followed by density sorting in water channels. The beans are first dried for 24 hours under cover, then for 15 to 18 days on African drying beds in direct sunlight. Final sorting is done by hand, ensuring the high quality of the finished coffee.

The Simbi washing station is located in the Huye district in Rwanda’s Southern Province. Simbi is a privately owned station operated by Abdul, who was inspired by his grandmother. She was also a coffee farmer and one of the few rural Rwandan women who roasted her own coffee and enjoyed it as part of a daily ritual.

The station was built between 2011 and 2012, and their first harvest season was in 2013. At that time, 85 people worked at Simbi — 80% of them were women. In 2013, Simbi participated in the Rwanda Cup of Excellence for the first time and placed 9th out of 159 samples!Despite the tragedies of genocide and civil war that shook the world in 1994, Rwanda is an incredibly beautiful and culturally rich country that also produces exceptionally high-quality coffee. Coffee has brought hope for a better future since those dark days, and today Rwanda is rightfully regarded as a leading producer of top-tier specialty coffee.

Rwanda offers ideal conditions for coffee cultivation — high altitudes, regular rainfall, volcanic soil with good organic structure, and an abundance of the Bourbon variety. The vast majority of Rwandan coffee comes from smallholder farmers, who typically manage plots of land no larger than one hectare per family.