Rwanda

This is the before and after shot of the coffee beans I roasted tonight.  These beans are from Rwanda Coffee Villages, which is a small, private cooperative that sells fair trade beans.  Known as the "Land of a Thousand Hills" most of Rwanda's coffee production is located in the southern and western districts of the country on small farms situated at altitudes ranging from 1700 - 2000 meters.  Coffee is heavily grown along Lake Kivu.  In the north, production is fairly limited to the Rulindo district, north of the capital city of Kigali.

All Rwandan coffee uses a unique drying process called "skin drying" which basically consists of using long, shaded tables for drying the beans and a very hands-on monitoring of the 15-20 day drying process.

I have grown fond of the dripped brewed coffee made from these Rwandan beans.  I'm roasting the beans to a solid Full City+ (darker roast) and it's really quite nice.     

Rwanda is a place where the production of high-quality coffee is inextricably linked to the rising spirit of a population after the tragic genocidal civil war of the 1990s.  Prior to the genocide, Rwanda coffee was often seen as marginal at best - dominated by one or two foreign commercial growers.