Feb. 24, 2017
Earlier this month Espresso Elevado, a micro-roaster in Plymouth, MI, brought a new Rwanda roasted coffee to its shelves. This coffee is labeled to highlight the women's cooperative that grew the coffee -- the Ejo Heza group of the KOPAKAMA cooperative, Rutsiro district of the Western province of Rwanda. About 300 women of the 775 total members formed their "sub-cooperative" in 2011.
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| Women of Ejo Heza with their coffee trees - Bernice, Therese and Olive (L to R). |
Upon closer inspection, this coffee goes a few steps further than "just" being sourced from female coffee producers. The coffee was imported by woman-owned
Artisan Coffee Imports and roasted by woman-owned
Espresso Elevado, making it a very unique "all-female-value-chain" coffee.
The coffee tastes great in the cup. With Espresso Elevado's roast, we find the flavor
complex with sugar plum and pink lemonade fragrance, maple
syrup, winey, plum aroma. After the break, flavor has wine and berry, vanilla, roasted
almond, butter and clove with aftertaste of butterscotch and hints of orange. Great
smooth body with the familiar Rwandan ‘sparkle’ of acidity.
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| Teresa Pilarz - Founder & Chief Caffeinator of Espresso Elevado Espresso Elevado |
Roasting notes from Teresa:
The
first time roasting any new coffee is always somewhat of a shot in the
dark. I noticed this Rwandan seemed to lose a lot of heat after first
crack began. Our goal was to maintain a gradually decreasing rate of
rise and prevent any heat spikes during the latter part of the roast. In
working with this bean, we’ve figured out how to keep it quite
light-roasted and still reach a solid 20% roast development. This
brings out the sparkling acidity while also allowing the complex flavor
profile to shine through with hints of dried fruit, exotic spice, and
butterscotch sweetness
If you'd like to purchase a bag, you'll find Espresso Elevado near the "town square" of Plymouth, MI at 606 S. Main St. Retailing at $16/12 oz. bag you can also get a fresh pour over of Rwanda Ejo Heza.
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| Ruth Ann Church - Founder - Importer at Artisan Coffee Imports (also Chief De-caffeinator!) |
Sourcing notes from Ruth Ann:
- This Rwandan coffee is from Ejo Heza, a women’s
cooperative that is a sub-group of the larger KOPAKAMA cooperative.
Located in the Rutsiro district of western Rwanda, there is a fantastic view
of Lake Kivu from the washing station.
- I was able to visit them several times while I lived in Rwanda, Nov. 2015 – Aug. 2016.
- The washing station is recognized by others and me as
one of the better-managed ones. They have processes in place to ensure
quality and I observed a well-managed washing station staff.
- The Ejo Heza women receive a lot of agronomist support
and other training from KOPAKAMA. For example, one of the reasons I met
them is because I was giving a leadership and management training to the
cooperative ("Lean at Origin" training). The president and two others from Ejo Heza were
invited to be in this training. In other words, there is evidence of lots
of inclusion for the women of this coop.
- The women asked me to see their trees and some of the
experiments they are doing with weeding and mulching to lower their costs.
(See blogpost)
I was very impressed. These women are running experiments with
control plots on growing techniques! Their objective is to lower their
costs while maintaining the high quality coffee production that earns them
a higher price than low grade coffees.
What do the women do with their “bonus” from coffee?
The KOPAKAMA cooperative helped them start a microcredit savings and lending group a
year ago (Jan. 2016). It is well-proven in development literature that
microcredit groups are effective vehicles to enable savings and small loans in
low-income rural areas. See this blog post for two stories from women of the Ejo Heza
group, sharing what microcredit group has helped them accomplish.
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| Therese and Olive - Leaders of the Ejo Heza group of women producers. |
