A Bright and Sweet Selection from Horizon Supreme in Rwanda

In Rwanda, coffee is produced by a majority of smallholder farmers and their families.  Many don’t have the ability to process coffee themselves, so large washing stations in coffee growing communities play a major role in the production of coffee. There are often hundreds, if not thousands, of smallholder farmers that contribute their cherries to washing stations to process it for them. Our latest coffee from the Horizon Supreme washing station in Rwanda, for example, has 1200 contributing farmers that are only 2km within the site!

Horizon Supreme is located in the southern part of Rwanda, in the Duye District in the Kigoma Sector. Here, the combination of high altitude and good rainfall allow for coffee trees to flourish and produce some of the highest quality coffees from the country. The mill was built in 2006, but remained dormant for many years after the original owner failed to operate it. Fidel Ndagijima purchased the washing station in 2018. Using his experience from managing washing stations in western Rwanda, he updated the equipment and implemented protocols that allowed the mill to produce high quality coffees. In addition, farmers receive organic fertilizer from the station consisting of recycled cherry pulp, which is fermented with lime and molasses to create effective microorganisms (EM).

All 1200 farmers working with Horizon are members of the Agribusiness Training Program (ATP) by Rwanda Trading Company (RTC)—a sister company of our importing partner, Falcon Coffees. With ATP’s focus on producing specialty coffees, all member farmers have seen increases in yield quality, which in turn has increased their household incomes. 

Finding coffee for our menu is always a game of planning ahead of time, or searching at the right time. We were lucky to snag the last 10 bags of this coffee, because it’s an exemplary representation of a classic Rwandan coffee flavor profile: clean and crisp acidity, syrupy body with hints of florals and herbals. It reminds us of green grape, molasses, and candied lemon. It’s great when you need something bright to help pick you up in the morning or afternoons!