Burundi Kibingo Honey

The Kibingo washing station is located in the Kayanza region of northern Burundi. The station itself is located 1,893 meters above sea level. The altitude of the farms on the neighboring hills that supply the washing station varies from 1,700 to 1,900 meters above sea level.

Kibingo serves 1,739 registered coffee producers, spread across 18 hills in the area. All producers registered at a Greenco wash station are organized into groups of 30 people, led by a farm leader. This leader acts as a spokesperson to facilitate communication and organization with the wash station.

The washing station is equipped with 10 fermentation tanks, 2 soaking tanks and a drying field with 165 drying tables and 4 pre-drying tables. Kibingo can process 750,000 kg of cherry per day.

At the washing station, farmers can obtain organic fertilizer from the converted coffee pulp. To promote farm renewal, farmers can obtain low-cost subsidized coffee plants at the washing station. Each station has its own nursery for this purpose.

The wash station is involved in several outreach and farmer support projects, including a livestock breeding project and a variety of Agricultural Hub projects focused on strengthening cooperatives and improving yields.

Process
During the harvest season, all coffee is selectively picked by hand. Most families only have between 200 and 250 trees, and the harvest is done almost entirely by themselves.

Quality control begins as soon as farmers deliver their cherry. The entire cherry is placed in small buckets of water as a first step to verify its quality. Greenco still buys the beans that float (damaged, underripe, etc.), but immediately separates the two qualities and only markets the floats as quality B cherry. After the flotation process, the higher quality cherry is regraded to hand to remove all damaged, underripe and overripe grains.

After sorting, the cherry is pulped within 6 hours of delivery. During pulping, the cherry is separated into high and low grades by density in a Mackinon three-disc pulper equipped with an additional separating disc.

When it comes to replicating the recipe, there are different variables that can interfere with the final result of your cup, such as the roasting date, storage of the beans, environment, water, etc. It is important to keep in mind that all these factors can influence and you may have to make small adjustments when replicating this recipe.

Method: Kalita
Mill: Fellow Ode to number 5I
Recommended mineral water: Bezoya

We have used 16 grams of coffee per 260 grams of water with a 15ml bypass. at a temperature of 96º
We add the water in 3 pours. First pour 60 ml we wait 30 seconds, the second pour up to 140ml and we wait until minute 1:00 and then we pour the rest of the water until we reach 260ml, ending with a bypass of 15ml. The total infusion time should be 3:30 minutes, achieving with this recipe a TDS of 1.40% and an extraction percentage of 21.40%.