It’s no surprise that one of our highest-quality coffees comes from of Mahembe, a region in Rwanda consistent in its production of some of the world’s finest beans.
It’s no surprise that this coffee would come out of Murundo, either. “Murundo” being one of two picturesque mile-high washing stations located on the shores of Lake Kivu (you should Google it) operated by the Kivu Belt estate, lonely heavyweights in the otherwise fragmented world of Rwandan coffee.
And yet we remain surprised.
This particular Mahembe Murundo combines the region’s typical sparkling citrus acidity with an unexpected tea-like counterpoint, elegant silky body, and faint auxiliary notes of vanilla, white grape, and raisin. This coffee is sweet, but describing it as such shortchanges the intricate bouquet of tones lying just beneath the surface. The interplay between Lake Kivu’s uniquely volcanic soil profile and the Rwandan coffee industry’s wholesale embrace of Bourbon varietal genetics is on full display here, but there’s also something else we can’t quite put our finger on. Perhaps someday we will learn to expect the unexpected.
Variety: Bourbon (local)
Altitude: 1700-1800 MASL
Process: Triple Washed
Brain Helmet Scale
Roast: Light
Acidity: 3/5 (medium)
Sweetness: 4/5 (medium-high)
Body: 2/5 (medium-low)