For my first coffee review I wanted to pick a bean I hadn’t tried before and in my ignorance Rwanda was not a country which sprang to mind when I thought about coffee producers.
This is a red bourbon bean. Bourbon coffee was first grown by the French on Réunion Island, called Île Bourbon until 1791 after the French Royal House. Along with Typica coffee it is one of the base cultivars of Arabica; both produce a similar quality but yields of Bourbon tend to be 20-30% bigger.
Bourbon grows best at heights of 1,100 to 2,000 metres above sea level and has large, wide leaves with wavy edges. It tends to have more secondary branches in comparison with other coffee trees. The berries are rather small and very thick, and can be red, yellow or pink depending on the sub-variety. Red, yellow and pink (sometimes known as orange) Bourbon are varieties with natural mutation of one recessive gene
Bourbon is valued for its complex acidity and wonderful balance. It often has a sweet, caramel quality and nice and crisp acidity but can present quite distinct flavours depending on where it is planted. El Salvador Bourbons tend to display butter, toffee, and fresh pastry; Rwandan types tend to have a punchier, fruity quality.
Koakaka is a co-operative founded in 1999 with 875 coffee farmers, and has since grown to 1,316 cooperative members with 297 women and 1,019 men. Its coffee is grown on the slopes of the Virunga volcanos in the district of Karaba, Rwanda, about two and a half hours from Kigal, the capital. In 2014, they began to segment their women's coffee and in 2016, Koakaka coffee was recognized by RWASHOSCCO as the best coffee in the country with a score of 90.3. In 2018, Koakaka placed in the Rwanda Cup of Excellence. Koakaka has been a member of the African Fine Coffee Association (AFCA) and the International Women Coffee Alliance (IWCA) since 2016.
Drinking this coffee on your first sip there’s a sweetness, almost a fruitiness, which hits the tip of your tongue and washes over it. This comes from malic acid which is formed in the coffee cherries as they grow. Malic acid is destroyed during the roasting process so this coffee needs a medium roast so as not to lose all the fruitiness. This gives you a rich, pear like flavour. A lovely, naturally sweet coffee. If you are looking for a coffee where you don’t need sugar or syrup this is the one for you!