Beacon Brew: Medium Roast (SO)

Lost in a sea of bad coffee? Can't find that one perfectly balanced roast to guide your day? Let this be your beacon, your guiding light in the dark, in the form of a medium (roast). 

This easy to drink coffee can be enjoyed as filter or espresso. And it will appeal to a broad spectrum of tastes if say your household is split among more adventurous coffee drinks and more traditional ones. Or wanting one coffee for multiple brew methods. One bean to rule them all. 

ORIGIN + VARIETY: SINGLE PRODUCER/MICROLOT - Rwanda / Red Bourbon
TASTING NOTES: milk chocolate + red fruits + easy to drink
ROAST: Medium
PRODUCER: Smallholder farmers 
FARM: Small farms, often less than one hectare in size
REGION: Northern Province, Gakenke District
ALTITUDE: 1600-1800 masl
PROCESS: Washed

SIZE: Available in 125g, 227g, 340g, 454g, and 908g bags

GRIND: Whole Bean, Filter, French Press and Espresso/Moka Pot.

More about the Producers:

Baho Coffee and Semilla Coffee support and help empower smallholder farmers who have farms that are often not even half a hectare in size. Nieghbouring, smallholder producers group their similar Red Bourbon micro lots together in order to maximize the price they're paid, and improve processing efficacy. 

Our partners at Baho and Semilla Coffee have also started a Farmer First program that ensures farmers can get second payments throughout the year, so producers and pickers aren't only paid at harvest. It also allows for workarounds for higher payments than the government imposed ceiling allows, and provides micro financing that producers depend on throughout the year. We also send micro financing donations to the farmers in Rwanda that we work with, alongside our partners. 

More about the Processing: 

The first step regardless of process is cherry sorting. Under shade, every cherry is sorted to ensure only the ripest are chosen and that any visibly defective cherries are removed.

Next, the hand selected cherries are placed into tanks where they go through multiple rounds of flotation to separate off the defective beans. This washed coffee undergoes a double fermentation process. After depulping, the coffee is immediately dry fermented (placed into an open-air fermentation tank with no water) for 8 to 12 hours. The coffee is then washed and the tank is filled with water for an additional 8 to 12 hour wet fermentation (coffee completely submerged in water). Once the fermentation is complete, the coffee is pushed through the grading channels. Here the coffee is very rigorously washed and separated by density.

The traditional system in Rwanda separates coffees into A, B, and C grades, based on quality (at the moment, we’re only focusing on purchasing of A grades). In Emmanuel’s case, he has extended this into multiple grades within the A range.

After grading, the coffees are soaked (now with no mucilage attached) in a tank of water for a final 8 to 12 hours. This is thought to promote even distribution of moisture throughout the seeds, thus leading to more even drying. After soaking, coffees are moved onto shaded drying beds for 48 - 72 hours. This has two distinct benefits. First, it sets the trajectory for the entire drying phase by initially beginning very gently and slowly under complete shade. Secondly, it allows ample time for additional sorting while the parchment is still wet - this is important because certain defects (Antestia in particular, thought to cause the potato defect ) can be seen much more easily when
the parchment is wet.

Total drying time for this washed coffee is 35 - 40 days.

Brewing Tips: