BURUNDI Yandaro, Filter

The washing station is in the valley where the eponymous Yandaro river runs. The growing area around the station benefits from being close to the Kibira Rainforest. A rainforest helps maintain groundwater reserves and adequate nutrition levels in the soil for the region surrounding it. Stationed near the rainforest and a large river, Yandaro station is in a very strategic location within a high-potential coffee region.

During the harvest season, all coffee is selectively hand-picked. Since most families only have a few hundred trees, harvesting is done almost entirely by the family.

Once sorted, cherry is pulped within 6 hours of delivery. The station’s pulper can process up to 3 tons of cherries per hour. 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 is then fermented for 10 to 12 hours in clean water from a nearby stream. Following fermentation, coffee is run through washing and grading canals to remove any remaining mucilage and to separate beans by density.
Parchment is transported to the drying tables where it will dry slowly for 2 to 3 weeks. Pickers go over the drying beans for damaged or defective beans that may have been missed in previous quality checks. Each table has a traceability tag with the lot info. Drying parchment is stirred regularly and any parchment with visual defects is removed.