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Read the story behind our gorgeous coffee from Gitwe, Rwanda, supporting over 1000 farmers!

Lugendo, DR Congo - Espresso

  • Product Info

    PRODUCER: Smallholder farmers

    PROCESS: Natural

    REGION: Kabare, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo

    VARIETAL:  Typica

    ALTITUDE: 1450-1750 MASL

    Tasting Notes: Notes of blackcurrant and plum, jammy and sweet with rich walnut body.

    About The Coffee 

    This natural 'Kivu 3' lot is from Lugendo washing station in South Kivu, one of 9 such stations operated by Virunga Coffee Company. 

    Virunga was set up in 2012 to produce specialty coffees in eastern DRC and improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers in the region. 

    Established in 2018, Lugendo coffee washing station is one of the more recent facilities built by Virunga coffee. Located in the Kabare region, the washing station sits at an altitude of 1,473 masl. Lugendo works with registered smallholder farmers in South Kivu, who cultivate at altitudes between up to 1,750masl.

    Virunga now have now trained over 11,000 famers in GAP (Good agricultural practices) and have partnered them in Organic and Rainforest Alliance certification. They have 40 field officers (trained agronomists) working in the region and distribute over 3 million seedlings a year to farmers in Eastern DRC.

    The region

    Eastern DR Congo still bear the scar from 20 years of conflict, political instability, disease, social tensions and illegal activities that put local population in constant risk of insecurity. Nonetheless, Eastern DR Congo has some of the greatest intrinsic potential to produce high quality arabica coffee in East Africa due to its environmental, geographic and agro-climatic conditions; namely, altitude, volcanic soils and rain patterns.

    For a long time Congolese coffees have been associated to poor quality and a damaging reputation of insecurity and armed conflicts, pushing Virunga Coffee to constantly fight to restore a name of high-quality coffee associated to high environmental and social standards. A key approach found to be very successful is by maintaining tight control on handling and post-harvesting processes by investing in collection points and washing stations. That's why Virunga Coffee invested in Lugendo CWS, in order to provide economic opportunities for the surrounding communities through a sustainable, high-quality and climate-smart coffee business.

    The process

    Ripe cherries are delivered to the station for careful sorting and floatation to sort by density. Once the highest quality cherries are selected they are de-pulped, then fermented for an average of 24 hours his parchment coffee is then dried in the sun for around 10 days until the optimum moisture content has been reached. At this point the coffee is rested in a cool, dry environment for 1-2 months, before being milled, sorted and graded by bean size.