Musasa FW Organic Farmgate Initiative

Musasa washing station provides up to six trainings annually for farmers in their region. These trainings, combined with selective handpicking, ideal microclimates and meticulous processing at the station create a coffee that has a classic Rwanda black tea body and notes of florals and citrus.

About this Coffee

Every bag purchased contributes to a Farmgate Initiative project. Learn more. 

Musasa washing station lies at 1,526 meters above sea level in the high-altitude hills of the Congo Nile Trail - practically on the banks of Lake Kivu. The Trail features 227 km (141 miles) of beautiful landscapes, including rolling hills and clear water. The washing station began operations in 2013 and since then has gone from strength to strength, including a Cup of Excellence win in 2011. 

Cultivation

1,750 growers deliver to Musasa and around 23% are under the age of 35. Musasa sees these young growers, the youngest of whom is only 20, as the future of Rwandan coffee. 

Although farm sizes are small - only around 0.18 hectares on average - farmers receive regular training in organic composting, renovation, harvesting techniques and other agricultural practices that ensure optimal growth for their small farms. The utmost care is taken with quality from the very beginning. 

Harvest and Post harvest

All farmers delivering to Musasa station live within a 15-kilometer radius. After selectively handpicking their coffee, they transport cherry to the washing station using a variety of means. Cherry is then inspected and hand-sorted to remove any damaged or underripes before they are weighed and loaded into the station’s pulper. Farmers receive a payment in line with the quality and quantity delivered. 

Musasa uses a Pinhalense eco-pulper, which separates ripe and underripe/underweight cherries again, along with removing any debris remaining with the cherry. This pulper uses one cubic meter of water to process up to 20 tons, significantly reducing the environmental footprint of the washing station.  

After pulping, coffee is delivered to the fermentation tanks to ferment for around 24 hours. After this, the coffee is thoroughly washed in clean water and all traces of mucilage are removed from the beans.    

After washing, coffee is delivered to one of the washing station’s 300 drying tables. Once here, the parchment will be turned every 30 minutes and covered during the hottest part of the day. Drying usually takes between 1 and 2 months, though the time required varies depending on the climate at the time.

Sucafina in Rwanda

n concert with our sustainability partner, Kahawatu Foundation, Sucafina Rwanda invests heavily in yield improvements, farmer training, quality improvement projects, environmental sustainability and other ways to increase farmer livelihoods.

Sucafina Rwanda’s Farmer Development Program in partnership with the London School of Economics (LSE) supports farmers with training in Good Agricultural Practices and access to loans, farm inputs and farm services. A new soil health initiative uses soil analysis data that Sucafina Rwanda collected to identify farms where soil is too acidic. Lime, along with education about application, is distributed to these farmers to help improve soil quality. Additionally, seedling nurseries provide up to 4 million seedlings per year to help farmers renovate their rootstock.

Sucafina Rwanda also has many projects that are designed to support farmers’ overall livelihoods. They focus on gender equality and support several women’s cooperatives by helping them access land, seedlings and reach a market for their coffees. They offer trainings on financial literacy and alternative income-generating activities.

The Farmer Hub program built retail shops that buy other crops from farmers and sell them to families and schools at fair prices. These retail shops help promote income diversification by creating a market for other crops and they supply nutritious foods at competitive prices. The Farmer Hub program also offers loans to farmers as part of the farm management program.

On the environmental side, Sucafina Rwanda has worked with partners to help install solar panels at 2 washing stations that are off the electrical grid. Sucafina Rwanda’s dry mill already have a 50 kilowatt-per-hour solar panel set up on their roof. They’ve also mapped carbon emissions in their coffee supply chain and are starting projects to half their emissions per kg of coffee. Two ways they’re accomplishing this is by facilitating a transition from inorganic to organic fertilizer and further improve waste (water and pulp) management at the wet mills. They’re also working with Trade in Space to map deforestation in the supply chain so that they can begin to work with farmers to reduce deforestation and improve forested areas in the supply chain.

Above all, Sucafina Rwanda's exceptional attention to detail during post-harvest activities ensures the best quality coffee possible. From the moment cherry enters the washing station until it is milled and bagged for export, Sucafina Rwanda keeps stringent quality controls in place. They know, as we do, that high-quality coffee is crucial for delivering benefit all along the supply chain.

Coffee in Rwanda

Despite its turbulent history, today Rwanda is one of the specialty coffee world’s darlings – for good reason! Our sister company in Rwanda does an amazing job of bringing the best that Rwanda has to offer to roasters around the world.

German missionaries and settlers brought coffee to Rwanda in the early 1900s. Largescale coffee production was established during the 1930 & 1940s by the Belgian colonial government. Coffee production continued after the Belgian colonists left. By 1970, coffee had become the single largest export in Rwanda and accounted for 70% of total export revenue. Coffee was considered so valuable that, beginning in 1973, it was illegal to tear coffee trees out of the ground.

Between 1989 and 1993, the breakdown of the International Coffee Agreement (ICA) caused the global price to plummet. The Rwandan government and economy took a hard hit from low global coffee prices. The 1994 genocide and its aftermath led to a complete collapse of coffee exports and vital USD revenue, but the incredible resilience of the Rwandan people is evident in the way the economy and stability have recovered since then.

Modern Rwanda is considered one of the most stable countries in the region. Since 2003, its economy has grown by 7-8% per year and coffee production has played a key role in this economic growth. Coffee has also played a role in Rwanda's significant advancements towards gender equality. New initiatives that cater to women and focus on helping them equip themselves with the tools and knowledge for farming have been changing the way women view themselves and interact with the world around them.

Today, smallholders propel the industry in Rwanda forward. The country doesn’t have any large estates. Most coffee is grown by the 400,000+ smallholders, who own less than a  quarter of a hectare. The majority of Rwanda’s coffee production is Arabica. Bourbon variety plants comprise 95% of all coffee trees cultivated in Rwanda.