Rwanda Cocatu - specialty coffee

Cocatu Cooperative was founded in 2007 by just twenty farmers. Over time, it grew rapidly, bringing together as many as 6,000 smallholder coffee producers. The global financial crisis brought this period of growth to an end, forcing some farms to leave coffee production and the cooperative to find a new way forward. Today, Cocatu represents around 260 small farms located high in the Tumba Mountains. At elevations above 1,800 metres, farmers carefully tend their coffee trees and hand-pick only the ripe cherries. Behind every bean are months of daily work, generations of farming experience and a shared commitment to quality.

In 2017, the farmers made an important decision: instead of investing in their own processing facility, they partnered with Kinini Washing Station, one of the region’s most highly regarded washing stations. This allowed them to focus on growing high-quality coffee while entrusting processing and quality control to the experienced Kinini team. The freshly harvested cherries are delivered to the station on the same day, where they are carefully sorted and cleaned before undergoing dry fermentation, followed by fermentation in clean water. After soaking, the beans are dried on raised beds, regularly turned and protected from the strongest sunlight. Every stage requires patience, care and precision to preserve the coffee’s clean notes of blackcurrant, juicy peach and sweet toffee.