In the Grinder - Our Daily Coffee Weblog

As we drove through the coffee country and it started to rain we could smell the potato in the soil.  A number of practices may contribute to potato. One of which is tilling the coffee fields and intercropping food crops like beans and other items.  It seems tree health is one of the first steps in stopping the bacterium or mould from reaching the coffee cherry.

This was Belgian territory at one time.  Between Rwanda and Burundi there are many similarities.  Language and ethnic groups (Hutu and Tutsi) which were arbitrary designations by the Belgians of wide nosed and bantu type people and tall thin nosed people (more European).  They have been taking revenge on each other for a long time in a cycle of retribution for  the positions bestowed upon the Tutsi as societal administrators and the Hutu as underlyings and then revenge for killings.  The last rebel group was brought into parliament and there is a relative peace there now.  It feels pretty safe out there but there was a clear mandate to not be on the roads at dark by our hosts.  I saw a couple of hard looking young men in the city that scared the pants off me.  These are the child warriors grown up and working the streets of Bujumbura.  The emptiness in their eyes is startling, deep and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand up. This legacy of violence and terror as a means of controlling both the perpetrators with their guilt and the victims with fear is the real challenge to Burundi moving forward.

Buziraguhindwa. Mill altitude: 1941 asm

Alt:1900-2000m

Varietals: Jackson, Mbirizi, Bourbon

Harvest will be early this year.Cassien has over 20 years in coffee.He worked for Sogestal Kayanza for 15 years including during the height of the conflict.  He worked for Sogestal Kirimiro until taking this position and has a year with Coopac in Lake Kivu region of Rwanda. The area around Buziraguhindwa is both coffee and tea which is typically the best area for coffee to grow.   The mill was on deck before the Sogestal WS develop system was halted and Cassien selected this area for the new mill.  The inconsistent amount of cherries from tree to tree was shocking.  In one field they would be laden and the next there would be no cherries.This amplitude in production volume cycle is brutal for the farmers.The cycle is from 10% with 2009  being the most drastic drop in recent history to 100% expected this year.  Renewal of old tree stock and proper care of the fields will help this and one could expect the healthier trees to produce cherries less prone to potato. The mill is state of the art and has all the things that we wish every mill in Burundi had.  Cassien is a major asset who has lots of experience and only one project to focus on.  He has clearly learned many things in managing other Sogestal washing stations. Pre sorting will happen after flotation in small tanks by individual farmers.  They take the floaters and rejected cherry home. To the right of the flotation tanks is the water for the processing.  The small tank near Cassien to the right is the recycled pulp water for pulping.   The left is fresh water which is taken from a local river and run through rock filters the same as the filtration system for waste water and the water in which secondary fermentation is done.   This is the only station in Burundi that I visited that has a legitimate wastewater system. Water quality for pulping water will be closely monitored. The cherries will be sorted for ripeness after selection at sorting tables and then they will be weighed and dumped into this receiving bin.The growers will then turn around and get paid the base price on site.  Burundi has a base price for cherry and then premiums are paid to grower, wet mill and dry mill with appr 50% going to grower and the other part split between the processors.   We pay a big premium and it is traced back to farmers per government regulations.  Currently separate farmers are not paid differently but the organization of grower groups in associations and cooperatives is underway and will allow more specific coffees to be rewarded if successful. The coffee then goes to a secondary flotation tank under construction in photo at right.  The coffee is submerged in water.  The under ripes and over ripes float and are siphoned off through a pipe in the top of the tank.  Those go to the tertiary side of the second pulper (coming up later) This tank is smaller and will require less water than many which will allow it to be fully utilized.   Water shortages are real during the dry season when coffee is harvested.   The coffee is then pulped in a 3 disk Mckinnon pulper.  The distance between the disk and the side is adjusted to control how much of the cherry is pulped.  This is an art and someone will be assigned to manage pulping. Each side of the disk is pulping the coffee from a different channel and the new type has a slightly triangulated tooth pulping surface which is purported as an improvement over the rounded tooth disk model.  The pulper is also a sorting machine.  Each stage separates pulped coffee from coffee that did not pulp (coffee that is not perfectly ripe) and the pulp. The screen at right lets the coffee pulped in the primary pulper drop through and go into the channels to the A1 fermentation tanks. Each stage is set up to give options for coffee to fail.  Each of these potential failure points can generally be adjusted so that the amount of coffee making it through is either max or minimum.  This includes picking, floating, pre-delivery sorting and the de pulping process.  This continues all the way to green coffee.  For the best coffees we add lot segregation and cupping into this and only a small percentage of coffees will reach the final stage.  It is like an elimination tournament in basketball.  All coffee ultimately finds a home with the least valuable staying in the local markets in most producing countries and the coffees above 78 or so going to international market for various applications. Burundi coffee is still a relative value. The secondary and tertiary pulpers are combined at lower right.  Each side of the disk is a grade.  The coffee that was siphoned off the top of the 2^nd flotation tank goes to the right (A3 or thirds) the coffee that did not get pulped in the primary pulper (A2 or seconds) goes to the left.  Each type is then channeled separately into fermentation tanks.There are 12 tanks and the A1 from each day is always kept in a separate tank.  If there is a shortage of space the A2 and A3 may be combined in a tank.  Fermentation is dry for the primary fermentation. This is 18-36 hrs. depending upon weather. Processing manager is responsible for determining if the coffee is done fermenting. Typically they can tell by feel how the coffee is behaving.   Coffee leaves the primary fermentation tanks through the pipes at left and goes to the washing channels.  The coffee is aggressively agitated and the heavier coffee stays further up the channel and the lighter coffee floats off or moves to the end of the channel first.  This is another part of selection and the best coffee (the densest) is put into a separate secondary fermentation tank. The coffee spends 24 hours in fresh water prior to going to shaded pre-drying tables and then to the screens. 

The drying beds are being built and the sense of anticipation at this mill is high.  The building of the mill is putting money in the pockets of the local farmers who are building it and the proximity of the mill to the growers will reduce the walking with heavy bags of cherry on their heads by many kilometers. Most things are carried on the head in Burundi.  Bikes are also in use.There is a school up the hill from the mill and 85% of children attend primary school to 6^th grade.  Only 10% go to secondary school but considering the war just ended here that is fairly impressive.  Our tax dollars via USAID have funded schools and more importantly springs every mile or so that are enabling the kids to go to school because they are not sick from bad drinking water.  Without fresh water the attendance rate at school can be as low as 10%.  With clean water it can top 90%. 

The sense of hope in Burundi is palpable.  The end of the conflict has ended a period of war and bloodshed and recriminations that was keeping this country in the stone age.  Aid is pouring into Burundi and the better part of it is going to projects that will enable them to feed themselves.  The average farmer has 200-600 trees and can produce appr 1 kilo cherry per tree in a good year.  That means that they produce only 1-3 bags of green coffee. This is a supplement to the food they grow and the goats they raise.  Farmers grow beans, corn, tomatoes and a variety of bananas including plantains, eating bananas and some for making banana beer.  Seemed like the beer bananas dominated the yards of most farmers.  They make bricks and tiles for roofs and have better houses than many in Africa.  Like Rwanda there is a lack of rampant trash and water bottles are cherished.  It feels weird to toss a water bottle out to a bunch of kids, but it is how they carry water to drink and enables them to take fresh water with them.  There are a lot of adults missing from this country and coffee is 80% of exports for Burundi.  650K farming families with an average household size of 6 relay on coffee for a part of their livelihood and cash to purchase simple necessities.  2.1 million out of a population of 8.5 million are growers of coffee.  Another large chunk of the population is employed in the milling, processing and movement of coffee.