Rwanda — Gitega Hills Washing Station — Red Bourbon (Washed)

Tastes Like — 🍓 Raspberries • 🍵 Black Tea • 🍈 Gooseberries

DETAILS

• Producer: Trapro Coffee Washing Stations (Bernard Uwitije)

• Washing Station: Gitega Hills

• Region: Cyanika Sector, Nyamagabe District, Southern Province, Rwanda

• Varietal: Red Bourbon

• Process: Washed

• Altitude: 1,300–2,200 MASL

• Size: 200g

INTRO

This is everything we love about Rwandan coffee: clean, sweet, and unmistakably expressive. The Gitega Hills Washed Bourbon is a textbook example of what the Southern Province can achieve — bright berry acidity, a refined floral lift, and a silky, balanced body that carries beautifully from first sip to finish.

The lot comes from Gitega Hills washing station in the Cyanika Sector of Nyamagabe District, one of Rwanda's most celebrated growing areas. At altitudes reaching over 2,000 metres, the cool volcanic soils and high rainfall create ideal conditions for Red Bourbon — a variety that, when meticulously processed, delivers the elegant transparency this coffee so clearly demonstrates.

THE PRODUCER

Bernard Uwitije grew up in a coffee-producing family in southern Rwanda and spent years trading commodity-grade cherry before recognising the potential of fully washed specialty coffee. In 2015 he established his first wet mill — Gitega Hills — equipping it with a 1,500kg Penagos depulper, fermentation tanks, and a network of raised drying beds. The following year he expanded the operation to around six hectares of land near the small town of Miko, adjacent to a disused quartz quarry in the Cyanika Sector.

The station is now part of Trapro Coffee Washing Stations, the network Bernard founded, and serves around 1,040 smallholder farmers located within seven kilometres. Those farmers contribute cherry from plots at elevations between 1,700 and 1,900 metres, where the volcanic soils of the Southern Province and proximity to the Nyungwe Forest — one of the traced sources of the Nile — help produce exceptionally clean, high-quality parchment. The station employs 150 people from the local community, 90% of whom are women.

Gitega also provides organic EM2 compost — produced from recycled cherry pulp and animal manure — to its supplying farmers, closing the loop on waste and improving soil health across the network. All 1,040 farmers have either completed or are actively enrolled in the Agricultural Training Programme (ATP), which underpins the consistency and quality of the cherry delivered each season.

THE PROCESS

The Washed process at Gitega Hills follows a carefully controlled sequence designed to produce the clarity and transparency this lot is known for:

• 🍒 Selective Harvesting — Only fully ripe, red cherry is picked; under-ripe and overripe fruit is excluded at collection.

• ✅ Intake Sorting — Freshly delivered cherry is sorted by hand and by float to remove defects before processing begins.

• 🔧 Depulping — Cherry is depulped using a 1,500kg Penagos machine, separating the seed from the fruit skin and mucilage.

• 🧪 Wet Fermentation — Coffee ferments in water-filled tanks, allowing natural microbes to break down remaining mucilage and develop complexity.

• 💧 Density Grading — After fermentation, beans are sorted by density in water-filled grading channels, separating heavier, denser beans from lighter ones.

• ☀️ Raised Bed Drying — Washed parchment is spread on elevated African beds for slow, even drying with good airflow, preserving brightness and cleanliness.

The result is a coffee of exceptional clarity — clean, structured, and vibrant, with the tart berry brightness and refined tea-like quality that makes Rwandan Red Bourbon so compelling.

THE CUP

This is a refined, transparent Rwanda — sweet, lively, and elegantly balanced. Raspberry and gooseberry lead with a bright, precise acidity, underpinned by a clean black tea character that carries through to a long, poised finish. It brews beautifully as a filter coffee but holds up equally well as an expressive espresso.

Flavour Notes

• 🍓 Raspberries

• 🍵 Black Tea

• 🍈 Gooseberries