Espresso: Rwanda Rushashi Honey

This is already the sixth year in a row we bought Rushashi. We have a good relationship with This Side Up importers and Rushashi is the first co-op they started with. Rushashi is progressive, with women empowerment programs and water/energy saving depulping systems. This sweet, fruity Rushashi has notes of blueberries, marshmallow and an appel/pear note as well.

Rushashi Coffee Washing Station (CWS) is the largest of two washing stations owned by the Abakundakawa coffee producer cooperative, one of This Side Up’s first partners. It is located in the lush and green Gakenke district, characterised by high spiky hills at high altitudes - making it ideal for high-quality coffee production.  It is no coincidence that this region produces some of Rwanda’s most sought after coffees.

Abakundakawa has come a long way since it started as a smallholder farmer association in 1999. It became a recognized cooperative in 2007. Since then, in a relatively short time, Abakundakawa managed to become an advanced operation with over 2000 member farmers, which serves as a prime example of how coffee growers can turn the specialty market into a seller’s market. We were truly amazed by the standards this coop conforms to: it has the facilities to roast and cup samples on-site, employs a full range of organic processing methods (and is on its way to becoming certified organic), provides full transparency in its bookkeeping, and in recent years has received technical and leadership training from the Rwandan government and development agencies - especially from SNV, This Side Up's trusted development partner in Rwanda. In terms of processing, it employs a particularly long fermentation process that has been adopted by several nearby cooperative societies and has likely contributed to the bronze medal they earned at the 2010 Rwanda Cup of Excellence competition. 

Today it’s a solid, well-organised cooperative with 2100+ farmers, of which 900+ are women and 400+ are youth, throughout 17 villages in Gakenke district. We have bought this coffee over the last five years already and we are proud to have continually supported such a beacon of light on so many fronts, and still after all these years, with our beloved friend Antoine in the driver’s seat.