Burundi Gakenke

Country - Burundi
Region - Gatara, Kayanza
Station - Gakenke Washing Station
Variety - Red Bourbon
Proc. Method - Fully Washed
Altitude - Washing station – 1,670 meters above sea level; Farms -- 1,500-1,800meters above sea level
 
The cup:  Floral, with notes of redcurrant, blood orange, and honey.
 
Gakenke station:
Gakenke station was built in 1991. With 224 drying beds, the station can process up to 750 metric tonnes per season. The
station has 2 flotation tanks, 10 fermentation tanks, and 2 soaking tanks. The drying field has 150 raised beds.
Gakenke has 1,780 registered farmer members, spread over 22 hills in Gatare commune, Kayanza province. These are
organized in groups of 30 people, headed by a producer leader to facilitate communication and organization with the washing
station. The farmers typically have an average of 250 trees.
The washing station participates in a number of farmer outreach and support projects including a livestock rearing project
and a range of projects centered on strengthening cooperatives and improving yields.
 
Cultivation:
Most coffee trees in Burundi are Red Bourbon. Because of the increasingly small size of coffee plantings, aging rootstock is a
very big issue in Burundi. Many farmers have trees that are over 50 years old, but with small plots to farm, it is difficult to
justify taking trees entirely out of product for the 3-4 years it will take new plantings to begin to yield. In order to encourage
farmers to renovate their plantings, Greenco purchases seeds from the Institut des Sciences Agronomiques du Burundi
(ISABU), establishes nurseries and sells the seedlings to farmers at or below cost. At the washing station, farmers can also get
organic fertilizer from composted coffee pulp.
Despite the ubiquity of coffee growing in Burundi, each smallholder producers a relatively small harvest. The average
smallholder has approximately 250 trees, normally in their backyards. Each tree yields an average of 1.5 kilos of cherry so the
average producer sells about 200-300 kilos of cherry annually.
 
Harvest and processing:
During the harvest season, all coffee is selectively hand-picked. Most families only have 200 to 250 trees, and harvesting is
done almost entirely by the family.
Quality assurance begins as soon as farmers deliver their cherry. Cherries are wet-processed under constant supervision. The
pulping, fermentation time, washing, grading in the channels and a final soaking is closely monitored. All cherry is floated in
small buckets as a first step to check quality. Greenco still purchases floaters (damaged, underripe, etc) but immediately
separates the two qualities and only markets floaters as B-quality cherry. After floating, the higher quality cherry is sorted
again by hand to remove all damaged, underripe and overripe cherries.
After sorting, cherry is pulped within 6 hours of delivery. During pulping, cherry is separated into high- and low-grade by
density on a Mackinon 3-disc pulper outfitted with an additional separation disk. The coffee is then fermented in water from
a nearby stream for 10-12 hours, depending on ambient temperature. A small sign on every fermentation tank keeps track of
each lot. The sign mentions the washing station name, date of cherry purchase, grade and the time when fermentation began.
Trained agronomists check the beans by hand regularly to ensure fermentation is halted at the perfect time. When
fermentation is complete, the parchment is trampled by foot for 30 minutes in the fermentation tank. This trampling process
helps to remove mucilage on the fermented parchment.
After fermentation and trampling are completed, coffee is run through washing and grading canals. As the beans flow
through, wooden bars that are laid across the canal prevent beans of specific densities from passing through. These bars are
spaced across the channel. While the first blockade stops the most-dense beans, the next is arranged to stop the second
most-dense beans and so on. In total, the channel separates beans into seven grades according to density. After washing, this
parchment is poured onto wooden trays or nylon bags and carried to the drying tables, each in its separate quality group.
Each tray and nylon bag of parchment keeps its traceability tag with all info.
The beans are then transported to the drying tables where they will dry slowly for 2-3 weeks. Pickers go over the drying beans
for damaged or defective beans that may have been missed in previous quality checks. Usually, each table holds 800kg of
parchment. In the peak of the season, the maximum load for a table is 1000kg. The parchment is left to dry from sunrise to
sunset and is covered with a sheet during the evening or when it rains. If the weather conditions are good, the parchment
takes on average 10 to 14 days to dry. During this time it is stirred regularly. The moisture level is carefully monitored and any
parchment with visual defects is removed. On the table, the beans are dried to 11.5%.