Thursday, August 28, 2025

Slate's Excellent Rebuke of the SCA Take-Over of the Q

Thank you @dailycoffeenews and Roast Magazine for alerting us to a great article by Slate, dated August 25, 2025.

CLICK HERE for the full article

Here are a few of our favorite clips:

We might think of what’s going down like this: The SCA spent a pretty sum to breed a young racehorse  🏇 (let’s call him Cupping Monopoly) from the same pedigree as the world’s fastest horse 🏇 (let’s call him Q-Biscuit). And just as the young buck was about to race the veteran Q-Biscuit for the first time, the SCA purchased Q-Biscuit, then took him behind the barn and shot him. Place your bets! Cupping Monopoly, it turns out, wins the race.😂😂

...

Following the stunning agreement, Marty Pollack, a Q-Grader and co-founder of Torch Coffee, minces no words, likening the SCA to the Mafia [👍👍👍]: “They found out the No. 1 opposition to CVA global domination. It’s Q graders.” Now Q graders either train with the SCA—on a system that erases the specialty coffee community they have long been a part of—or don’t train at all.

...

In its June 2024 outline of the CVA model, the SCA writes, “There can be no calibration in cupping, as there is no objective standard regarding the impression of quality.” But if we are setting standards for tasting coffee, why would we pursue objectivity over quality? I want to drink good coffee, not objective coffee. Sadly, judging by the lack of community engagement the CQI pursued during its agreement with the SCA, it no longer believes in sharing a common understanding of what’s good either.

...

Further comment from me, "Why has the SCA board still not managed to fire Executive Director Yannis Apostolopoulos??"

See our related blogpost, dated June 1, 2025: CVA-Gate: Unnecessary Takeover...

Friday, July 25, 2025

Alice Nshuti - update on a young Rwandan's coffee career

 

Alice showing a bag of Sandrew roasted
coffee from within her cafe - Mulax.
One of our greatest joys as an importer is to see the impact we have on the lives of young coffee professionals in places like Rwanda. 

Artisan Coffee Imports Internship

Alice Nshuti was first selected to work as an Artisan intern in 2021. She started in October 2021 with an intense 6-week coffee professional training at Ikawa House in Rwanda's capital city, Kigali. Then, throughout 2022, she worked as an assistant high up in the mountains of Gakenke with one of Artisan's supplier women's groups, the Rambagirakawa women.

Business Data Internship 

At the beginning of 2023, it was time to move into a more professional role. She was hired as Dukundekawa Musasa's Business Data Intern -- a position funded by Root Capital. While this was a paid position, the wages were so low, Alice would not be able to cover basic monthly expenses without support. Artisan therefore funded a "career-starter" subsidy for Alice's 6 months in the Business Data intern position.

Alice spent the next half year to a year exploring her job opportunities. She had a college degree in Agribusiness, almost 2 years' experience working at a coffee cooperative and a burning passion to work in the coffee industry. Unfortunately, no positions in Rwanda's coffee industry were opening up for her. She applied for jobs outside of the coffee industry, but she could tell her heart was not into it.

Business Data Intern

Starting Her Own Brand of Roasted Beans

In her own words she told me, "one day in 2024 I asked myself, why don't you just start your own small coffee business, no matter how small? It will make you happy and you will gain experience." So she did! She used what she knew, including her networks of people in coffee and friends with entrepreneurial ideas to take the first steps of making a business plan. 

She decided she would procure green coffee beans using her skills in cupping to select the best ones. She found a toll-roaster in Kigali who had good references from others selling roasted coffee. This roaster also allows Alice to supervise him / work with him each time he roasts her beans. This way Alice can be sure she is getting the type of roast her customers have requested. She's most excited when she wins a new wholesale customer who tastes her roasted coffee next to the brand they've been buying and they say, "wow! I didn't know coffee could taste that good!"

Originally the brand name for her roasted beans was Inshuti @inshuti_coffee . But when she started the trademark process, she learned that name was taken. Now she's changed the name of her roasted beans to Sandrew, which is a blend of her parents' first names: Sarah and Andrew.

MULAX Cafe

She joined forces with a co-investor / friend to secure retail space in a busy area of Kigali called Kisimenti. Together they now operate their cafe they named Mulax  @mulax.cafe. They're attracting consumers who enjoy the green plants lining the interior, the cozy ambience and a generally light-soaked space. Mulax serves fresh-brewed Sandrew coffee, craft beers and delicious bites. They are open 24 hours!

As if that's not enough to keep her busy, Alice also travels with Ruth Ann during her trips to cooperatives in Rwanda as a translator. After several years of supporting Artisan on one or two week trips, and after accumulating four years of cumulative coffee experience, Alice was ready to step into a new role at Artisan - that of Export Logistics Coordinator based in Kigali.

Inside Mulax Cafe

Export Logistics Coordinator - Rwanda

Since mid-July this year, Alice has been going up the steep learning curve of understanding a myriad of coffee export details. Artisan has special demands related to microlots, the women's groups and paying premiums, quality control of our containers and managing the risks loading day and international shipping in general. On top of these unique parts of Artisan's business, Alice has been learning the basics of pre-ship samples for customers and for NAEB, export taxes, ICO documents, weight notes and phytosanitary certificates. Add to this the constant effort to ensure quality of the coffee from the day it arrives at the NAEB warehouse. She's met the staff who work for our cooperatives at NAEB, our freight forwarder and our three exporters in Kigali. She carefully observed the unloading, moving and storage conditions of all of the microlots as they wait for shipment day.

It's a lot! Alice seems energized, however, by the challenge. She comments, "I love learning and I love learning more about coffee the most!"

Current role with Artisan: Export Logistics Coordinator















Alice was an Ikawa House "coffee professional" student in 2021.

Graduation day with Ikawa House instructors, long-time Q Graders and international cupping judges, Uzziel Habimana and Laetitia Mukandahiro.

Alice's one year internship as an Artisan Coffee Imports intern, and traveling with Ruth as a translator has increased her range of of experiences in coffee professions.




Alice especially enjoys working with and learning from the female farmers. Her 2021 internship focused on supporting projects of the Rambagirakawa women.











Thursday, June 19, 2025

Kungahara women: their accomplishments and challenges


Today we visited the Kungahara women's group and their parent cooperative, Bwishaza. The main objective is to cup the coffees and select the lots for our customers. Relationship building and strengthening is another key objective of these trips. A third objective is to "Go to Gemba". This is a phrase from Lean Operational Management theory, that managers need to go to the place where the activity is happening, and go there often. Otherwise, the manager doesn't really know what is happening and makes poor decisions.

Relationship Building: happens in many ways. One of the sweetest on this day was a serendipitous meet-up with 3 of the Kungahara women while I and my translator, Bridget VUGUZIGA, were driving to the cooperative. We saw three women walking along the road, going the same direction we were going and stopped to give them a ride. After a few minutes, we asked where they were going and explained we were going to Bwishaza cooperative. Then one of them asked, "Are you Ruth?". My translator helped me reply with surprise, "well, yes! How did you know my name?"

Claire Mukakaruta, Marie Josee Nyirasafari, and Rose Nyiransekuye proceeded to explain that they are Kungahara farmers and therefore they have heard a lot about Ruth and how Artisan's customers support their group by paying a few cents per kilogram for the annual women's premium. I asked about how they feel about the coffee harvest this year. They said "it's good, but it's not just that the cherry price is high this year. We appreciate the opportunity to come together as women. We share our concerns and we help each other."

Kungahara Accomplishment - Land for Mulching Grasses

Last year the women leading Kungahara decided to buy more land that is next to their community coffee plot so that they could grow the grasses used for mulching.  The premium that Artisan paid helped them make the down payment for that land. They borrowed the rest of the money needed from the parent cooperative.

I'm confident from past experience with Kungahara that they'll pay down that loan from the parent cooperative and doing more exciting projects like this one. They are great about sharing what they do and communicating effectively.

Kungahara Challenge - Cupping lab destroyed to make room for the road


By "Going to Gemba" one learns what is really going on. I learned, for example, that the cooperative's




beautiful cupping lab had been destroyed to make room for the road improvements. The cupping lab was built for them in 2017 by a Korean non-profit and fully equipped with sample roasters, grinders, cookers, a sink, a large cupping table, lots of cups, spoons, etc. This was a shock. The road improvements are desperately needed, but Samuel, the cooperative's manager, was clearly pained as he explained the compensation payment from the government was about $1000 short of what they would need to replace the cupping lab. As I walked around and saw the piles of bricks, metal roofing and metal window frames that were the cupping lab, I was concerned. 




Cupping Continues - in the warehouse among the stacks of coffee

True to my past experiences of Rwandan persistence, a little thing like a crushed cupping lab does not stop them. They had set up a wonderful place to cup in the middle of their small coffee warehouse. We proceeded to cup many wonderful coffees while among the stacks of parchment freshly brought from the tables just steps away from the door. 




Sunday, June 1, 2025

"CVA-Gate": Unnecessary Takeover and Destructive to Our Community

June 1, 2025

As I sat in the CQI Luncheon at the Brown Convention Center in Houston on April 26, the room seemed to be held in a palpable gloom. The confusing, half-announcements about "cancelling the Q" were abusive in their unconcern for the language that CQI had taught coffee professionals over the past 20 years. We had learned to talk to each other.

Over 20 years, the Q educational standard for assessing sensory attributes of coffee has become a language that is spoken by at least 106 countries. One hundred and six countries have at least one licensed Q grader! (I studied the list on the CQI website of currently licensed Q graders to arrive at this number.) The SCA was willing to toss this baby out with the bath water, convinced by the arrogant idea that by December 31, 2025, it could replace it with its own tool for physical and sensory assessment.

Vanity and self-obsession is the only explanation I can find for the SCA's blindness to the obvious better path they either never saw or refused to see: why not do both? Why not continue the Q Grading system, which SCA controls as of Oct. 1, 2025. Why not offer the industry the "old" sensory assessment Q Grading certificate as a "Level B" accomplishment and allow the new assessment the years of time it will take to build and promote a new "Level A" certificate.

There are decades of proof that the Q Grader and a new CVA assessment can co-exist meaningfully and beneficially. Our industry has always had, and benefited from, multiple and alternative tools for sensory evaluation of coffee. The Q Grader has existed alongside the Cup of Excellence, Academy of Coffee Excellence cupping form for decades. The ACE and the CQI programs have been considered two very distinctly important and meaningful approaches to evaluate coffee value. They have lived side-by-side without confusion. I believe the commercial grade coffee business has its own evaluation system to grade imports and name defects in imported, lower grade coffees. This one is older than the Q or the ACE evaluation.

Maybe SCA could give the CVA assessment a more appropriate name, like the "Physical-Descriptive + Affective Score" form? The "PDAS" form for short? I have no doubt, that the SCA could pour money into promoting the research-based under-pinnings of its Descriptive form for describing coffee and its Affective form for scoring coffee. This would be a welcome addition to the world of coffee sensory evaluation.

What is not appreciated by those like myself who try to improve value distribution across the coffee value chain is the SCA's candy-coating of its Extrinsic Assessment form as either well-researched or well-vetted across the coffee world. I'm one coffee professional who knows that my feedback at one of SCA's "Beta - testing workshops" in August 2023 has not been incorporated.

I suggested that the Extrinsic Assessment form is lacking any form of gender equity assessment. Research has shown over and over again how women are the backbone of coffee and investing in women and gender equity in coffee communities strengthens their resilience and improves coffee productivity. Gender equity and investments that support women, women's health and children's health are also highly correlated to attracting the younger generation to the profession of coffee farming. "I hear my mother's voice every day," one thirty-something Rwandan man told me. "If, when I was a boy, she was telling me every day that she hated coffee and I better do something else when I grow up, that's what I will hear in my head as a man." That man will not want to be a coffee farmer. Now change the scenario. What if we got lots of mothers today telling their children “whatever you do, make sure you plant some coffee trees.”

Research also shows that farm size and farmer years of experience are the most impactful factors on cost of production. Should these be found somewhere on an "extrinsic assessment" form? They are not there. In fact, the so-called Combined Form for the CVA assessment, which is the form most likely to be used in any real-life lab-setting, has nothing in "Part 3: Extrinsic Assessment." It's a blank rectangle to write your notes. Not a lot different than the current SCA Cupping Form when it comes to evaluating extrinsic factors, I would say.

And yet the Extrinsic Form seems to be the entire basis for the name of this tool: "COFFEE VALUE ASSESSMENT". I'm sorry. The emperor has no clothes. Let's call a "spade" a "spade" please, not try to call a frog a prince. The SCA is introducing a new non-quantitative coffee sensory description form which works nicely when paired with an affective assessment which is scored.[1] 

That's it! While SCA tries to sound fancy by mentioning Part 1: Physical Assessment, this form is the same green coffee evaluation form we've had for decades (taught in the Q grader class, by the way), and frequently used in combination with the cupping form to evaluate a lot of coffee. Except with CVA they've taken density off the form. Not sure how that's an improvement.

SCA tries to pat itself on the back as ethical by adding Part 4: Extrinsic Assessment. Again, nice try, but if you're only going to list the country, the region, the process, any certification and ignore everything else, including whether women are enslaved for production of this coffee, I'm not impressed.

We don't need to throw out the Q Grading tool that has empowered producers in 106 countries to talk to their customers in order to add emphasis or standardization to industry practices that are already well-established. Yes - let's agree to regularly share: country, region, process method and any third-party certifications.

Looking at the signs in the hallways in Houston, one would think the CVA form itself was going to bring equality to the entire coffee value chain by December 31, 2025 -- therefore we should all be jumping for joy! So why were all the CQI leaders I know looking concerned, glum or literally crying?

The audacity and insanity to believe that any system could replace a system practiced in 106 countries can only be likened to other groups we know who live in narcissistic worlds convinced that they are the only ones who matter.

If I could request that the SCA provide an FAQ on their new sensory tool that is actually helpful, it would ask and answer the following questions:

Q: What is the budget that SCA has allocated to train all the instructors in 106 countries?

Q: What is the timeline on which each of 106 countries can expect to have instructors and graders that equals the number of Q instructors and Q graders that they have today? I'm here in the USA, a pretty big country, and I can't find this information for my country.

Q: What is the plan to communicate with and gently transition students (like me) who are already training for their next Q calibration or instructors who have courses scheduled through the end of 2025?

Q: Where could Q instructors get accurate information? For example, about whether their students who were signed up to take their class on April 28 would be eligible for the CQI Q Grader Certificate?

A: There was none. My instructor was IN HOUSTON, IN CVA meetings on April 26 and 27 with SCA decision-makers and did not get accurate information. She ended up giving those of us who signed up for her April 28 class a mistaken message that "no certificate would be given even if you pass the calibration." CORRECT INFORMATION: CQI certificates are given to students who pass the Q calibration tests through September 30, 2025.

Q: Is there any good reason why SCA has not made the CVA an additional certification that professionals can earn, in addition to their Q Grader license, since the two are NOT mutually exclusive, just different? 

A: No, SCA chose chaos over the obvious solution of making the CVA the “A Level Certification” that one can earn on top of one’s “B Level Certification,” which is the Q Grader Certification. Such a solution would have created a global system with 106 countries in it already. It would have a substantial chance at convincing people like me that the SCA was interested in "evolving", not simply crushing competitors and don't worry about who gets hurt and #@$%^Y the little guys, gender equity and all that complicated stuff.

I was IN HOUSTON seeing SCA's freshly printed signs proclaiming the "evolved" new sensory tool and nothing on the SCA website had accurate information for people like me. People wanted to know if there was any other option besides dropping my 14 years of training and waiting until some unknown date, to go to a currently non-existent website to see if there were any CVA classes somewhere in the USA, and what it would cost.

Now, in June 2025, there is a website and there are 12 CVA Cupper courses in the United States before Dec. 31, 2025. (https://specialtycoffee.my.site.com/s/course-list?mod=CVA%20for%20Cuppers) There is no way to filter or see the CITIES or even STATES in which these courses are offered. You can click on each one and each time you click out again, you will have to start from square one to get the filter narrowed down to the 12 classes in the USA. Infuriating. Not exactly promising that SCA has suddenly become an organization that is up to offering a resource to the globe.

There is no way to contact an individual on the SCA Education staff to ask questions. I'd like to ask about getting credit for the CVA course I (paid for) and took at Coffee Roasters Guild retreat in Delavan, WI in August 2023. All I can do is fill out a CONTACT US form.

The cost for the two-day CVA Cuppers class is $850. Can you believe this?! Instead of paying $600 to re-calibrate my Q Grader License, the SCA thinks it would be good if I cancel all that planning and forget all my training and preparation and instead pay $850 to listen to their propaganda for 2 days and "practice cupping." Because this will make me eligible to be an evolved Q grader. Got that? I'm not even certified in the new system when I pay $850. This is the green fee to be eligible to pay even more money next year to actually get a certificate.... after they decide what that is going to be. They don't know yet. Do you get the sense they're making this up as they go along? I do.

Would it have made more sense to maintain a dual-track system? One track that is proven with systems and instructors, and the new track, which needs time to evolve. Maybe they could run a couple of pilots to see if the system works before they try to launch?

It was sad to see SCA's mismanagement of the valuable Q Grader tool overshadow what could have been a happier celebration of CQI’s accomplishments and mission going forward. With the inexplicably poor communication from SCA, they succeeded in looking like the ugly bully that bludgeons those genuinely interested in improving the industry. The SCA stands in favor of installing systems that ensure that white men with a lot of money keep all the power. ^&*%# the 103 countries that aren't big enough to pour money into SCA's coffers and "who cares?!" about instructors who passionately teach Q grading courses and those of us lowly coffee professionals who had just spent weeks preparing for a Q calibration class on April 28? We have been firmly (some would say abusively) put in our place as inadequate of your attention. Thank you SCA.

It was sad to me that CQI's accomplishment of bringing the Q grading system to at least 106 countries was not highlighted during the lunch. Speakers at the lunch tossed out the number "10,000 Q Graders" which is impressive, but that tally doesn't, for me, share the value of the Q as a means of communication between producers and their customers. "A language now spoken by 106 countries" emphasizes the depth of what Ted Lingle was seeking when he pursued the idea of a standard for specialty coffee. My 14 year journey as a Q Grader has continually brought me in touch with other professionals and organizations who value making it easier for producers to learn and understand what their customers want and need.

Another core value of the Q Grading system is its ability to be an appropriate technology in less-developed countries. Q instructors actually encourage the use of paper forms. Is paper and pencil an old-school technology? Yes. And many coffee producing countries simply still need old-school systems as a valid alternative.

The CVA Assessment, on the other hand, is reported to "prioritise digital platforms, exclusively employing electronic forms or tools. There will be no provision for traditional paper forms. Additionally, score calculation will be carried out electronically, potentially facilitated by an app, as per SCA guidelines." [CUPRIMA blogpost]

I fail to see how such a system is going to be helpful for the farmers I work with in rural Rwanda. This may change, but I don't believe my roaster customers are clamouring for a global digital database of cupping scores either. They appreciate and will continue to use Q scores. Does the FNC see value in such a database? No doubt. Does the Brazilian Specialty Coffee Association want access to such a database? Of course, yes.

Taking the Q Grading system away from all producers in all producing countries is rude and presents innumerable expensive and frustrating challenges in other parts of the supply chain. SCA unfortunately continues to offer little to no explanation or communication. Here at Artisan Coffee Imports, as a company that values the voice of the producer and our common language, we’ll do our best to continue working with the Q Grading system and teaching Q principles at origin, in an ethical and sustainable way

1. The CVA system calls Part 3 "Affective Assessment" (or Part 2 depending on whether you're using the combined or the "full")


Monday, May 5, 2025

Houston, TEXAS Warehouse Visits

 Last week on April 29, Ruth Ann was excited and honored at the same time to visit two of Houston's coffee warehouses. Only after the two visits did she realize she had the pleasure of seeing what are probably the oldest and the newest coffee warehouses of the port of Houston!


Dupuy Warehouse - the 'Ol Vanguard:
 First Ruth Ann was welcomed by the team at Dupuy. The first thing she noticed was how the warehouse district seems relatively close to Houston's downtown. She had imagined coffee being warehoused somewhere near Galveston, TX. But she learned the Buffalo Bayou brings ocean vessels many miles up from the coast to Houston's bustling port.

The Dupuy- Houston location has been supporting the coffee industry's complex import and logistics needs since 2007. The facility has an impressive 296,000 sq. ft., including 24,000 sq. ft. of temperature controlled space. They offer a long array of services and have a team with managers like David Galvan Operations Manager there for 13 years. Ruth Ann also met Joe Boisvert, Sr. Director of Sales; Preston Asay, Houston's Commercial Manager and Robert Lewis, General Manager, 

As the Dupuy team shared their best practices for maintaining pest-free, climate controlled storage, the topic of adequately packaging green coffee for LTL transport came up. Ruth Ann gathered insights on Dupuy's tips for "quad-strapping and wrapping" pallets so that heavy coffee bags avoid sagging and slouching, which can result in broken and damaged bags.  



RPM Warehouse is very new! The newest of Houston's coffee warehouses is RPM, which opened its doors in December 2023 in a new industrial park and newly built facility. While the square footage is similar to Dupuy, RPM boasts 36' (vs. 21') ceilings. The stacks of coffee were literally towering over us as we walked the 1100 ft building length, observing 80 available loading docks, 40 on each side. 


Jeff Hernandez, General Manager, welcomed Ruth Ann in the conference room with a showcase of dozens of coffee cans from the 1930s and a library of books with titles like "The Economics of Futures Trading", "Guide to Commodity Price Forecasting" and "The Coffee Break." Hernandez explained the collection of coffee cans and books were his father's. Then he proceeded to share the intriguing story of his Dad, Al Hernandez, who started as a green coffee trader, then worked for Dupuy in New Orleans, then built Dupuy's Houston warehouse, which was the first for coffee in the area. Later, after Dupuy was sold to a private equity firm, RPM's owner, Ray Masucci, reached out to Al, and asked if he'd join RPM. Al did, and eventually helped RPM build RPM's Houston location where we were standing. In April 2024, Jeff Hernandez also left Dupuy, and became RPM Houston's new GM.

It's not surprising, given how new it is, but it's still impressive to see how RPM showcases the most modern processes, machinery and infrastructure for coffee storage and logistics. There are 288 LED lights on timers in the class A building with giant ceiling fans to help cool the building without air-conditioning. Electric powered fork-lifts quietly run down shiny clean floors between yellow lines, and later hum at their fork-lift charging station. These high-tech features are the back-drop to simple improvements like Jeff's hand-built window shades made with the same netting used on coffee drying tables at origin!


Ruth Ann was impressed to see that coffee un-loading at this point in the value-chain is done much like it is at the other end - by strong arms and backs. "We have some of the best lumpers", Jeff explains, as he allows me to watch a stocky man deftly unload 132 lb coffee bags from a semi-truck trailer onto the pallet held by a fork-lift using only his strong arms, legs and back. 

All-in-all it was a great day of learning and appreciating the diverse skills of those who staff coffee warehouses. It was also an opportunity to appreciate those who have had the vision to build and maintain these essential facilities to our industry. 






Wednesday, January 22, 2025

Artisan's new leaf and bean logo!

We're excited to announce a new "leaf and bean" logo for Artisan Coffee Imports! After 16 years, we are retiring our original logo with the coffee beans inside a square or rectangle. We are keeping the script font for the word "Artisan." Script being a font that we feel evokes an artist's signature.

Here is the new logo:

Our new logo has the following elements we think you might enjoy noticing:

The bean at the starting end of the capital A (first letter) brings coffee into our name more fully.

The leaves and beans graphic (beneath the word Artisan) represent the farmer (leaves) to roaster (beans) bridge or connection that Artisan is constantly seeking to achieve. Artisan farmers need Artisan roasters and vice versa.

For the graphic artists amont us, this is the logo statement:
  • The logo has been refreshed by distilling the detailed elements to their core essence, focusing on simplicity and clarity. By stripping away complexity, the new logo maintains the brand's sophistication and elegance, but is now a more impactful mark that, because of it's simplicity, will be well remembered and resonate with the audience.
Our new logo is thanks to the brand builders at Monte Consulting in Houghton, Michigan. 

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Voices of our Producers: Interviews with Women Producers in Rwanda

Interviewing Olive NYIRAGAHIGIRWA (center),
Bridget VUGUZIGA, translator, (right)
In 2024 we conducted our 4th round of ‘sample group” interviews with the producers of our Rwandan women grown coffee. We started this practice in 2019 in hopes of integrating our data with that of other groups doing larger producer surveys. The collaboration with others hasn’t happened, it was disappointingly difficult to engage other, larger groups in a joint effort. However, we’ve found the work valuable in many ways, despite the fact that that our “sample” is too small to in any way represent the average for the groups we work with.

What We Learn

In these interviews I gain context that is impossible to gain other ways. I use the context to strengthen our supplier - buyer relationship and achieve the mission of Artisan Coffee Imports, which is to improve the lives of farmers (and strengthen the brand promises of roasters). I know, for example, why making our payments on time is so important. We learn about the farmers' struggles, their dreams and their every-day life.

Melanie MUKAMUNANA 
For example, Melanie, one of the Ejo Heza members I’ve known the longest has been raising one of her grandsons since the genocide in 1994. [Ejo Heza women are part of the Kopakama Cooperative.] He was planning to get married in a few months and Melanie was planning to use her Ejo Heza premium, and the token of cash I give to each interviewee, to support his wedding gift.

Olive, another Ejo Heza member, also raised her grandson. She tells us the story of how at first he hated working on the farm. But gradually, he saw how the coffee harvest brought their household good things like better food and a tile roof. Then he realized coffee paid for his school fees. He started asking how he could make the coffee plant produce more cherries and became interested in agronomy. This gave him motivation in school that he hadn’t had. Now he’s proud to be farming with Olive. In turn, Olive is proud of the good house with a good floor and roof she provides. “Now it’s a house a widow can truly be proud of,” she says.

Olive also endured a tragedy since the last time I interviewed her. She was in a “moto accident”, which means when she was taking a motorcycle taxi, it got in an accident. She was wearing a helmet as is the Rwandan law, but she was severely injured and hospitalized. Now she has a significant scar on the side of her face.

We also interviewed women of the Agaseke group. [The Agaseke women are part of the KOPAKAKI cooperative.] One of them, MUSABWAMANA Marie Chantel, struck me as quite accomplished, and it turns out she is a relatively new member. Chantel’s family consists of her husband and two children, ages 3 and 5. Together they have 6500 coffee trees, which means she is a large coffee farmer in Rwanda (land size is about 3 hectares). She was a field officer for the Kopakaki cooperative before she got married. She explained that “Group A” is the designation for the farmers with the best marks from the cooperative agronomist for maintaining their coffee. She’s proud to be a Group A farmer, because you must be in group A to be in the Agaseke women’s group.
Marie Chantel MUSABWAMANA