Tastes like

Apple crumble, dates, and dried cherry. Juicy and dried fruit, together. That is what Kibingo does.

You get warm apple crumble sweetness up front, deep date richness through the middle, and dried cherry pulling the whole thing together into something fruit-forward and satisfying.

The coffee

Kibingo washing station receives cherry from over 3500 smallholder farmers in Kayanza, and this lot is pure Bourbon. The average producer here has around 300 trees on roughly a tenth of a hectare of land. Coffee is not a side income for these farmers. It is the income. Microlots like this one are selected out of the day's lots by cup quality, drawing from many small producers to create something that expresses the best of what the Kayanza highlands can offer. Bourbon is a variety that rewards patience and altitude in equal measure. A natural mutation of Typica first cultivated on what is now Réunion Island, it is known for its sweetness, its complexity, and a dried-fruit character that runs through some of the best lots grown at elevation in East Africa. The apple crumble, the dates, the dried cherry: that is Bourbon doing what it does at height.

Origin

Burundi is landlocked, logistically difficult to source from, and produces some of the most compelling coffees in the world. Kayanza sits in the north of the country along the Rwandan border, where highland smallholders deliver fresh cherry to centralized washing stations to be sorted and processed together. Getting coffee out of Burundi takes time, and the journey from harvest to export is long. The best lots, though, make the case for every bit of that effort. The Kayanza region in particular has produced coffees that consistently push toward the top of the cupping table.

Process

Washed, with cherry depulped the same day it arrives at the station. After depulping, the coffee ferments underwater for twelve to twenty-four hours, then is washed clean and spread on raised beds to dry for around twenty days depending on the weather. The result is a clean, structured cup that lets the character of the Bourbon variety and the Kayanza terroir come through clearly.

Brew it your way

Outstanding on filter. Worth pulling as espresso. On filter at 1:16, the apple crumble sweetness and dried cherry come through with clarity, and the date richness gives the cup a satisfying weight. Pull it as espresso at a 1:2 ratio in 28 to 32 seconds for something warmer and more concentrated, with the dried fruit notes deepening nicely under pressure.