One of this year’s suite of coffees from the boutique Kivubelt group in western Rwanda, this lot comes from the Nyaruzina farm, one of three estates owned and operated by Kivubelt in the Nyamasheke region. Single-farm coffee is extremely rare in Rwanda where coffee is overwhelmingly grown on small plots to be sold as cherry and processed centrally. Kivubelt has become a totally unique producer, not only for its estate model, but also for its location—Nyaruzina is located on an island in Rwanda's Lake Kivu. Nyamasheke District The Nyamasheke district in Rwanda is gifted in terroir. The cool, humid climates of both Lake Kivu and the Nyungwe Forest National Park keep precipitation and groundwater abundant throughout the uniquely steep, hilly region. Kivu itself is part of the East African Rift whose consistent drift creates volcanic seepage from the lake’s bottom and enriches the surrounding soils. Coffees from this region are often fuller, jammier in balance and more layered than in the rest of the country. Nyamasheke, like other districts along the lake, includes breathtakingly beautiful shorelines chiseled into steeply terraced agricultural escarpments, as well as fishing and tourism industries that keep the shores lively. Kivubelt Coffee Kivubelt was established in 2011 by Furaha Umwizey, after returning to Rwanda with a master’s degree in economics from Switzerland. Born and raised in Rwanda, Umwizey’s goal with Kivubelt is to create a model coffee plantation, as sustainable in agriculture as it is impactful in local employment and empowerment. Kivubelt began with the acquisition of 200 scattered acres of farmland in Gihombo, a community in Rwanda’s Nyamasheke district that runs along the central shoreline of Lake Kivu. Under Umwizey’s leadership, Kivubelt has planted 90,000 coffee trees on their estates, which now employ more than 400 people during harvest months and is a kind of coffee vocational school for local smallholders interested in improving their farming. Kivubelt has also acquired two washing stations, Murundo and Jarama, which combined not only process coffee from the company’s estates, but also that of more than 500 smallholders in the region, offering quality premiums and training programs for participating farming families. This lot of coffee was grown on Kivubelt's Nyaruzina farm, a 16 hectare island property with 26,000 coffee trees. Cherry was fully washed, dried, and conditioned at their Jarama washing station nearby on the mainland.
