Rwanda Ejo Heza | Washed

This is a very special coffee to us, with now nearly 10 years purchasing from the Ejo Heza women’s producer cooperative, only missing a year due to some crop size and supply issues related to the pandemic. Ejo Heza is an all women’s producer cooperative group within the larger Kopakama cooperative that was founded after the Rwandan genocide with a mission of uniting people for a common good and rebuilding a healthy industry and community, which led them to create this subgroup to provide even greater opportunities for equitability and growth for women in the community. The group was appropriately named Ejo Heza which translates to “brighter tomorrow”.

The cooperative has become a leader in social and gender equality in their community, reinvesting and creating opportunity, and of course producing award winning, exceptional coffees. We expect the quality of these lots to only increase even further in time (though already exceptional) and we're thrilled to get the opportunity to work with Ruth Ann of Artisan Imports and the Ejo Heza group.

This lot is a bourbon variety, washed process (disk depulper, wet fermentation for 12-18 hours, and soaked in a separate tank for 16-24 hours before being sundried on raised beds. This year’s crop is perhaps even cleaner and juicier than last, another wonderful spring / warm weather coffee. It's also more explosive than some previous years, with each tasting note just being extra amplified and crisp. Look for very juicy notes of red grapefruit, peach and cherry blossom, at times almost tasting like a Kenya in how dynamic and punchy it is. The touch of florality roots the coffee, between those pops of fruit juice and sugar.