Rwanda’s Shyira Washing Station receives cherries from producer farms as high as 2400 MASL, ideal conditions for cultivating specialty coffee beans and likely the highest grown coffee in the country.

This Red Bourbon lot has been nicknamed Munwarukweto by 17 Grams, the local Kinyarwandan name for the native shoebill bird, perfectly fitting for this bright and complex coffee.

Both the extreme altitude and processing contribute to the sweet date and floral honey flavour of this coffee. It’s undergone anoxic natural processing, where the cherries are placed into a fermentation tank, covered by a sheet which is then submerged with cool water to create a vacuum sealed anoxic environment.  This process has been develoiped to help adapt existing washing station infrastructure rather than requiring new equipment for low-cost extended fermentations.

Shyira processes both washed and natural anoxic ferments so to finish the natural processing phase, the coffee is drained and then dried in cherry on raised beds for up to 5 weeks.