Washing station: Musasa Ruli

Varietal: Red Bourbon

Processing: Fully washed & sun dried, then decaffeinated using the carbon dioxide process

Altitude: 1,700 to 2,000 metres above sea level

Owners: Musasa Dukunde Kawa Cooperative, comprised of 18 women and 30 men smallholder farmers

Towns: Ruli

Region: Gakenke District of Northern Province

Decaf isn't a dirty word! You'd be surprised the number of people who are sheepish about asking for decaf. We're not here to judge - just to make sure you love every sip of your coffee, whether it's caffeinated or not.

And to put our money where our mouth is, we're proud to present this amazing decaf from Ruli, a washing station from which we're bought some amazing non-decaffeinated coffees in the past.

The Musasa Dukunde Kawa cooperative has four
washing stations lying high in Rwanda’s rugged northwest.

Ruli, the cooperative’s first washing station, was
built by the co-op in 2003. Ata vertiginous 1,999 metres above sea level, it is one of Rwanda’s highest washing stations.

Most of the smallholder producers with whom Musasa Dukunde Kawa works own less than a quarter of a
hectare of land, where they cultivate an average of only 250-300 coffee trees each as well as other
subsistence food crops such as maize and beans. The cooperative gives these small farmers the chance to
combine their harvests and process cherries centrally. Before the proliferation of washing stations such as
Ruli, the norm in Rwanda was for small farmers to sell semi-processed cherries on to a middleman, and the
market was dominated by a single exporter. This commodity-focused system, coupled with declining
world prices in the 1990s, brought severe hardship to farmers, some of whom abandoned coffee entirely.

Today, it’s a different picture. Farmers who work with Musasa Dukunde Kawa have seen their income at
least double, and the co-op produces some outstanding lots for the specialty market year after year.

‘Musasa’ means ‘a place to make a bed’ and ‘Dukunde Kawa’ means ‘let’s love coffee’ in Kinyarwanda-a reference to the power of coffee to improve the lives of those in rural communities.

Musasa Dukunde Kawa now owns four washing stations and is one of Rwanda’s larger cooperatives, with3,000 producers, contributing cherries from their farm. Ruli washing station began serving local farmers in 2004 and today buys and processes cherries from 1,438 farmers in the area (150 of whom are non-members).

The level of care that Musasa Dukunde Kawa Ruli takes over the processing is impressive. Cherries are hand-picked only when fully ripe and then pulped that same evening using a mechanical pulper that divides the beans into three grades by weight. The facilities here include a machine that removes the mucilage more efficiently, thus reducing the overall fermentation time. After pulping, the coffee is fermented overnight (for around 12 hours) and then graded again using flotation channels that sort the coffee by weight. The wet parchment is then soaked in water for between 18 and 24 hours to stabilise moisture content.

As at most washing stations in Rwanda, women do the majority of the hand sorting. This takes place in two stages-on the covered pre-drying tables and on the drying tables. Washed beans are moved from the wet fermentation tanks onto the pre-drying tables, where they are intensively sorted under shade for around six hours. The idea is that greens (unripes) are still visible when the beans are damp, while the roofs over the tables protect the beans from the direct sunlight. Next, the beans are moved onto the washing station’s extensive drying tables for around 25 days (depending on the weather), where they are sorted again for defects, turned regularly, and protected from rain and the midday sun by covers, ensuring both even drying and the removal of any damaged or ‘funny looking’ beans. After reaching 11% humidity, the coffee is then stored in parchment in Ruli’s purpose-built warehouse prior to final dry-milling and hand-sorting at the Cooperative’s brand-new dry mill in Kigali. Each coffee that arrives is also cupped byMusasa’s team of expert cuppers along withthe Q-graders oftheir exporting partner, Rwashocco.

This coffee is decaffeinated using carbon dioxide, which is 100% natural and retains the flavour of the beans.