Burundi Kibingo Honey

Kibingo washing station, part of the Greenco Coffee Company, is nestled in the northern mountains of Kayanza, Burundi. Greenco was founded in 2015 with a mission: to build a better future for Burundi's next generations through the production of coffee or "Hope Through Coffee". Currently the company operates 13 washing stations that support over 44,000 registered farmer members.

Greenco is dedicated to improving the socio-economic and environmental conditions in Burundi. Its washing stations have water treatment facilities and use solar panels for energy. In addition to providing training on farming practices, Greenco organizes classes about gender equality, financial planning, family planning, and more.

Kibingo washing station serves over 3,500 local smallholder farms, providing organic fertilizer from composted coffee pulp as well as low-cost, subsidized coffee seedlings. Kibingo also participates in a number of farmer outreach and support projects including Farmgate Initiative's Burunidi Livestock Project. This project provides livestock chains to small communities to improve their quality of life through increased revenue streams, larger harvest yields, and better nutrition.

This coffee was selectively hand-picked by each farmer and their family. After being accepted at the washing station, all coffee is first floated to check its density. The higher quality cherry is separated and sorted again by hand to remove all damaged, underripe, and overripe cherries and then pulped within 6 hours of delivery. During pulping, cherry is separated into high- and low-grade by density on a Mackinon 3-disc pulper outfitted with an additional separation disk.

The coffee, with its remaining mucilage, is moved directly to the drying tables to dry until it reaches 11.5% moisture (2 to 3 weeks). The coffee is laid out in a single layer and pickers remove any damaged or defective beans that may have been missed in previous quality checks. It is covered with tarps during periods of rain, the hottest part of the day, and at night.

Greenco’s team of expert cuppers assess every lot, which is separated by station, date, and quality, at their coffee lab. This traceability is maintained throughout the entire process from cherry selection to export.