This organic natural processed 'Kivu 3' lot is from Katana station in South Kivu, one of 9 such stations operated by Virunga Coffee Company, set up by Schluter Ltd. (now Covoya Europe) in 2012 to produce speciality coffees in eastern DRC and improve livelihoods for smallholder farmers in the region.
Virunga now have now trained over 8,000 famers in GAP (Good agricultural practices) and have partnered them in organic certification. They have 35 field officers (trained agronomists) working in the region and distributing over 3 million seedlings a year to farmers in Eastern DRC.
The Region
Eastern DR Congo still bears the scar from 20 years of conflict, political instability, disease, social tensions and illegal activities that put local population in constant risk of precarity and insecurity. Nonetheless, Eastern DR Congo has some of the greatest intrinsic potential to produce high quality arabica coffee in East Africa due to its environmental, geographic and agro-climatic conditions; namely, altitude, volcanic soils and rain patterns. For a long time Congolese coffees have been associated to poor quality and a damaging reputation of insecurity and armed conflicts, pushing Virunga Coffee to constantly fight to restore a name of high-quality coffee associated to high environmental and social standards. A key approach found to be very successful is by maintaining tight control on handling and post-harvesting processes by investing in collection points and washing stations. That's why Virunga Coffee invested In Katana CWS, in order to provide economic oportunities for the surounding communities throuh a sustainable, high-quaility and climate-smart coffee business.
The Process
Ripe cherries are delivered to the wet mill for careful sorting and rotation in clean water tanks. The ripe cherries sink due to their high density and the oaters are removed and used for lower grade production. The ripe cherries are then dried in the sun on raised African beds for 12 - 15 days until the optimum moisture content has been reached. They must be turned consistently to ensure even drying and prevent mould or overfermentation. Once the coffee has dried it is transported to Butembo for dry-milling, grading, sorting and handpicking (triage), before being bagged in GrainPro for export.
