Burundi Gacokwe Washing Station
Burundi Gacokwe Washing Station One Roast
For a long time now, we have shied away from Burundi coffee. It has only been the delay in Rwandan coffee shipping that has forced us to look and see what other options are available. This lot will only be with us for a very short time.
Almost unlike any other coffees that we have roasted and brewed, the lots of Burundi that we have bought are a little like a reversible tank-top (bare with me…). Many coffees we roast, that have acidity, often have a dry finish, sometimes they can be a touch tannic. With our Burundi’s it’s the opposite, front end dry citrus that opens up and sweetens, in cafetiere or a cupping bowl. When we take the same roast into espresso, the reverse happens. This has probably all been written before, somewhere by someone and is not a unique discovery, although I bet they didn’t use a tank-top as their descriptor!
Washing Station Information:
Region: Rango, Kayanza
Varietals; Bourbon, Jackson, Mibirizi
Altitude: 1650 Meters above sea level
Process: Fully Washed
Due to the tiny size of most smallholdings in Burundi, it is not easy to buy from a single farm. Small holdings that are under a hectare are also unlikely to have their own mill for processing. This is when a local mill or washing station comes in. Gacokwe has some 2,000 small producers bringing coffee in.
Cup potential;
Filter: In cafetiere or similar this is aromatically orangy and milk chocolaty too. We only got the “upfront tannin” at the beginning of the brew, it doesn’t seem to happen in filter brewing. This opens up into a big sweet orangy tasting liquid (if all is going well) and has a huge creamy body. On cooling everything sweetens up and you could be excused for thinking apricots and marmalade. 60-65g per litre in filter.
Espresso: We didn’t find a need to go outside of our usual comfort zone of 1;2 or 17g of dry coffee into 34- 35g of espresso liquid. Due to the light Omni- roast, extracting a little longer than the norm, so 28-35 seconds, 93-94C.
