Bumba, Honey

 In 2013, Long Miles Coffee built Bukeye, its first washing station, and produced its first bag of Burundi coffee. The volume of coffee cherries that were delivered to Bukeye during the first harvest season far outstripped the small washing station’s capacity. It turned out that coffee farming families were coming from far and wide, travelling more than three hours by foot to reach a washing station with fair scales and that paid a fair price for coffee cherries.

The dedication of coffee farmers in this region to producing quality coffee stood out to the Long Miles team, both in the field and on the cupping table.

Every year since then, Long Miles has been trying to bring a washing station closer to this community. In 2017, Long Miles bought a piece of land on Ninga Hill, a fifteen-kilometre drive from Bukeye Washing Station. However, significant changes in the country’s coffee regulatory board delayed the build-out of a washing station. It took them close to three years to cross the bureaucratic red tape. In 2022, they started building traditional African-raised drying beds and produced the first naturally-processed micro-lots of the season: Bumba, Giku and Ninga.

It takes a lot of time, resources and people to build a washing station in Burundi. It is their hope to see the Ninga Washing Station built to completion in time for next year’s coffee harvest season.

The farming communities that call Bumba home are far beyond the reach of clean drinking water and electricity. Step closer to the centre of the hill and you’ll find a local market where people sell baskets full of freshly harvested crops and trade other household essentials. Coffee farmers will walk or bicycle the day’s harvest of cherry to the Ninga Washing Station delivery site.

 In: 22g Out: 44g Time: 28sec Temp: 94.5°C