This coffee hails from the Yandaro washing station in the Kayanza region of Burundi, owned and operated by Greenco. The washing station is nestled between the rainforest and the large Yandaro river, sitting close to the border of Rwanda. The area is prime for coffee growing as the Kibira Rainforest helps to keep adequate nutrition leves in the soil.
2,341 local coffee producers from the surrounding hills bring their crop to the Yandaro Washing Station. Generally, each smallholder will have approximately 250 red borbon trees and are normally in their backyards. Each tree yields an average of 1.5kg of cherry, so the avergage producer sells around 200-300 kilos of cherry annually.
Zest has purchased 300kg of this coffee, equivilant to one family farms entire crop for the year.
The local farming family's deliver their crop to the washing station where quality assurance begins. The cherry is immediatly floated to seperate bettwen ripe coffee and floaters, and then sorted by hand. All cherry is pulped within 6 hours of delivery.
This particular coffee is pulped to a honey level, before being transported to drying tables where the coffee is dried slowly over 2 to 3 weeks. During the nights or during rain, the coffee is covered with a sheet.
After processing, the coffee is transported to Budeca, Burundi's largest dry mill. Here, the coffee is milled and hand sorted with extreme attention to detail using technology like UV lighting to point out defects. Any defects are discarded. A team of two hand-pickers takes a day to process one bag of coffee. Budeca employs 10% of the population of Gitega, the city Budeca is located in.
ABOUT GREENCO
Greenco, a company that oversees and structures washing stations in Kayanza province of Burundi, gives washing stations and producers support all along the production chain. They started their work in 2015, and have dominated all Cup of Excellence competitions in Burundi ever since. Currently, Greenco has 13 washing stations all located in Kayanza in the north of Burundi. The producers receive support from the Greenco CWS managers, who are all agronomic engineers. Greenco’s overall impact through these 13 central washing stations (CWS) extends to over 15,210 coffee producing households.
Greenco works with young agronomy graduates to provide farmer training and manage washing stations. Young graduates are particularly well suited for the work with Greenco because they can all work with computer systems, greatly simplifying the flow of information between the washing stations and Greenco. Also, they have a fresh and systematic approach to coffee production and processing, with up-to-date knowledge about farming practices. The agronomists received additional training from the NGO Kahawatu Foundation on best agricultural practices (BAP). Off season, they provide agronomy assistance to the roughly 15,210 farmers who deliver cherries to Greenco CWS to prepare for the next harvest.
Another socio-economic challenge that Greenco addresses is youth unemployment. The national youth unemployment rate is almost 50%. At Greenco, young graduates receive a decent salary and benefits (house, motorbike, healthcare) as well as real career prospects.
Next to improving quality and productivity, Greenco strives to improve socio-economic and environmental conditions around the washing stations. All of their washing stations have UTZ and 4C certification. One of their focus points is building an efficient supply chain around the CWS. Greenco is buying 93% of its cherries directly from farmers via collection centers. This way, they improve farm-gate price to the producers.
In addition to providing training on farming practices, Greenco organizes trainings for farmer groups about various social aspects. Coffee families learn about gender equality, financial planning, family planning and more.
Environmental stewardship is of paramount importance to Greenco. They have equipped all washing stations with water treatment facilities and solar panels and batteries. The station has ponds to purify the wastewater from processing before flowing back in the river network. The solar panels provide energy for computers, lighting and smartphones.
