Artisan Roast: Rwanda, Karisimbi, Abokamu Co Operative, Washed

For a small country with almost exclusively one cultivar, Bourbon, Rwanda offers a wide range of diverse flavours for coffee drinkers, all as a result of terroir. Karisimbi washing station is in a zone of Northern Rwanda and has many of the characteristics all great coffees from this part of the country do.

The altitude in this area can be very high and with an average small holder altitude in the range of 2000m - 2200m above sea level coffee cherries ripen very slowly, developing high levels of sweetness. This sweetness can be tasted in abundance and the coffee has a distinctive muscovado sugar like flavour underlying all of it's complex nuances as well as a viscous syrup like mouthfeel. Northern Rwandan coffees have a nod to their Kenyan neighbours in flavour and taste balance too. In this coffee look for flavours of stewed fruits of rhubarb and red apple with a complex medium phosphoric acidity, almost reminiscent of cola, forming the main structure.

Beyond these attributes there is a delicious candied almonds finish and, when brewed as a filter, more subtle flavours of tangerine and jasmine become noticeable as the coffee cools.