Exemplary naturals from Burundi are far less rare now compared just 10 years ago. Producing naturals is a painstaking process of very slow cherry drying in Burundi’s chilly mountainous processing elevations. It requires space, time, and constant attention. Fortunately, Heza Coffee Washing Station is designed entirely for microlot management. Small volumes of coffees like this one, with black tea complexity, fruit candy sweetness and a honey-like tactile, are thankfully now the norm at Heza.
Welcome to Heza
Heza Coffee Washing Station, the second processing site built by the Long Miles Coffee Project (LMCP), is stadium-like in its height and steepness. Heza pumps water from a nearby natural spring to the very top of the station and washed processing cascades from there down to the bottom, where cleaned and graded parchment is then tagged and couriered to various plots on the hillside for organized drying.
It is common for processors in Burundi to use the consistently steep and hilly landscape as a tool for organization, often buying cherry from one single hill at a time, or using the term “hill” to refer to a micro-geography. Mutana, a widespread community consisting of multiple actual hills and hundreds of farmers, is one of the contributing “hills” to Heza.
Long Miles – Microlot Burundi
LMCP is a microlot business. All of their infrastructure, systems, employees, and marketing are designed to support large numbers of specific, unique and fully traceable coffees. Doing so in Burundi is especially difficult because farms produce very little cherry and are scattered across broad landscapes. They are also numerous, requiring the successful coordination of hundreds of farmers and processing staff just to produce a single differentiated lot. Importantly, such an effort requires sustainable prices to support, so the coffee itself needs to be as delicious as possible. Fortunately, LMCP excels at identifying landscapes and communities with potential, and investing heavily in farmer livelihood. With this formula they are easily producing many of the country’s best coffees each year.
Unlike most processors, LMCP separates every hill and delivery day until processing is complete and a quality assessment has been made, at which point certain day lots may be combined.
Farmers across Mutana “hill” are registered partners with LMCP and receive not only highly competitive prices and post-harvest premiums for their cherry, but also farm-level trainings covering canopy and fertilizer development, pruning, harvesting for quality and integrated pest management. These trainings are all provided by local “Coffee Scouts”, LMCP’s team of community-based trainers who serve as local instructors. The education and high prices combined have helped many of LMCP’s farmers renew their faith in coffee as a long-term livelihood. Long Miles works with a total of 5,500 farmers between their 3 washing stations, servicing 11 different “hills”.
Cherry from Mutana farmers is floated and hand-sorted for maximum ripeness upon delivery to Heza. The best overall cherry is accepted for natural processing and is moved to shaded drying beds to allow residual surface water to evaporate, during which it is hand-sorted for any insect damage and visual imperfections. Skin-dry cherry is then moved again to the larger beds with no shade to dry completely in the sun, a process that typically takes 4 or more weeks to complete. Occasionally cherry is piled into small pyramids to keep the total temperature lower than the surrounding air, and maintain a slow and even dehydration process.
