Mbirizi Washed

The Mbirizi station is located in Kayanza, a region we have purchased many coffees from in the past. Here Salum has invested in infrastructure, creating cherry collection points for those farmers who don’t have easy access to one of the stations, investing in community education projects, and starting environmental projects such as ponds to stop waste water from the stations entering drinking water supplies. When the cherries arrive at the station, they are first hand sorted to ensure uniformity and remove defects. The cherries are floated in channels to remove low density and underdeveloped cherries, before depulping and a further grading based on density. The depulped coffee is first fermented without water. Due to the low temperatures at the station, it can take up to 16 hours to sufficiently break down the sticky mucilage layer to allow it to be washed off in another set of channels. The coffee is again separated into density grades through these channels, before a final fermentation under water for up to 20 hours. This double fermentation, with both a dry and wet fermentation, is similar to that employed in Kenya, and not only provides a distinct character and control over the final cup, but many opportunities for sorting and catching defects. When employed by a quality focussed and organised operation such as Salum’s, this means consistent and clean cups. In this lot from Mbirizi, we are finding a classic bright washed Burundi profile, with fresh raspberry balanced by brown sugar sweetness, and those characteristic slightly herbal notes of rooibos tea in the finish.

About La Cabra

A focus on raw material

If we don’t feel that a coffee suits our style or what we like to present, we simply won’t buy it. Sometimes this leads to issues in green buying; we have to pay very close attention, to a level of green quality that will support this approach, and to how this will develop over the life of a coffee. We are required to focus heavily on the freshness of coffee, both green and roasted, to avoid introducing taints into our cups. We always use clean and fresh water, of an ideal mineral content to present the coffee in its best possible light. Once we have the correct roasting profile, water, and coffee age, the act of brewing is much more simple. A wide variance in brewing parameters can still produce delicious and transparent cups. It is also important to note that this is not always the most consistent approach. The coffee is laid completely bare, so any flaw with the raw material is clearly on show. We could often develop some coffees slightly more, to make them more approachable or easy to work with, but wavering from our philosophy like this would compromise our commitment to complete transparency in coffee.