Starting about 15 years ago Burundi’s reputation for excellent naturals was just beginning. At the time it was a handful of private processors risking their cherry in an entrepreneurial drive to do something different. By today, naturals for many roasters are the default option—they are synonymous with Burundi specialty and represent a unique market within East Africa, where natural processing outside of Ethiopia is still surprisingly rare.
This is a natural processed microlot from a single processing station in northeastern Burundi, close to the border with Tanzania. It’s a thick, round coffee with chocolate and subtle fruit. As a grade 2, the preparation standards are more permissible to a range of screen sizes and imperfections, which give the coffee an earthy, muddled sweetness and increased heft.
Musenga Hill & Processing Site
Muyinga is a narrow highland province in Burundi’s northeast. The province borders Tanzania to the east and Rwanda at its top. Muyinga is well-associated with Burundi’s specialty coffee market and history. Previous to this current generation of hyper-regional private processors and exporters, the country’s coffee value chain was managed by a few large government-owned corporations, known as Sociétés de Gestion des Stations de Lavage (SOGESTAL, literally, “Washing Station Management Companies”). These formed a kind of oligopoly that, for better or worse, limited price competition, standardized processing, and managed all exportation. Burundi’s coffee production, the country’s largest cash crop by far, was entirely government-run until the 1990s. During the prime of government oversight, the SOGESTAL covering the Rulindo and Muyinga provinces was one of the country’s most prominent. The SOGESTALs slowly liberalized until the 2010s, during which decade they sold most of their processing sites to small, new private companies.
Baho Coffee is one such new company. Baho first started in Rwanda in 2017 and today manages a number of washing stations there. They also work extensively in Burundi, partnering with independent processors to market their coffees abroad.
The Musenga Coffee Washing
Station is one such partner, owned and managed by Nyabenda Gilbert, which processes cherry from only 166 farmers on its namesake hill.
“Musenga” derives from the larger word “abanyamusenga” which means “those who pray”. The local story is that during the time of Burundi’s Christian colonization, which began in the mid-19th century, the inhabitants of the hill became famous for their exemplary piety and religious fervor, and often traveled long distances by foot to honor their spiritual commitments. Neighbors and travelers came to call them “abanyamusenga” as a result, and the label was shortened over time to the current “Musenga”.
Naturals at Musenga Coffee Washing Station are collected daily from the surrounding farmers, sorted for imperfections, and then transferred immediately to raised screen beds to dry. During drying, the cherries are rotated continuously in the sun and if needed, piled into small pyramids to slow the evaporation of moisture and maintain the cellular integrity, and sweetness, of the final coffee.
