Rwanda: Dry Process Nyamiyaga

The Nyamiyaga station is located in Nyamiyaga town, within the Kamonyi District of Rwanda's Southern Province. The coffee washing station serves almost 3000 farmers in the surrounding villages, most with less than 1 hectare of coffee. At just under 1500 meters, the milling site is at a much lower altitude than most of the coffee that comes in, many of the farms reaching above the 1800 meter mark. The station employs many grading techniques to separate out the top quality coffee, starting with the whole coffee cherry being submerged in tanks of water, and removing the low density coffee that floats to the top. The dry process coffee is then moved to raised drying tables where it will dry over the course of a few weeks. During this time, the cherry is turned by hand, and the workers continue to remove any coffee with physical defects they find along the way. All this care and attention results in a very uniform coffee for dry process, making it much easier to roast, as well as a very con