What better place to have a coffee than in the land of a thousand hills. In 2018 we started working on a plan that would allow our coffee drinkers and clients in Europe to join us in our adventures at the Rwandan coffee farms, where our specialty coffee finds its origin. We wanted to share with other coffee lovers the exciting, unique opportunity to visit and meet the producers in Rwanda we have had the luck of working with since we started Stean’s Beans in 2016. Ever since, Stean’s Beans works closely with a coffee washing station in western Rwanda called Liza. The Liza Washing Station processes the coffee cherry from several hundred local farms in the area. Coffee cherry is delivered daily during the harvest season from February to June and processed on the same day. Apart from the production of washed coffee, Liza also produces a naturally processed coffee, without the use of water. This naturally processed coffee might be the answer towards a most sustainable use of water in the coffee industry.
Owner of Liza Washing Station, Jean Paul, has been working in the coffee industry for over 25 years and is an agronomist by profession. His mission is to share with the surrounding coffee farmers his knowledge to grow and harvest coffee cherries of the highest quality. In turn, he raises the price that the smallholder coffee farmers are paid for their produce. Together with Jean Paul we started working on a plan to organize trips to his washing station and the surrounding coffee farms. This idea started two years ago and Liza Washing Station is now in the final stages of building a coffee cupping lab and guest house on Jean Paul’s land. Hopefully, by the time the next coffee harvest season commences, coffee lovers from all over the world will be able to experience the world of coffee production first hand and in a true African style.
As an investment in the local coffee culture and for educational purposes we provided the washing station with a small bullet 1kg coffee roaster, which allows Jean Paul to roast coffee locally. With the roaster in place, coffee farmers are now able to taste the end product of their produce and organize coffee tastings in the cupping lab for educational purposes. On top of this, Jean Paul started his own coffee brand, roasting and selling small microlots on the local Rwandan market, to promote his washing station and provide the farmer community with an extra income. We believe that, with these amazing tools, Liza Washing Station can offer an authentic and true coffee ceremony that starts with the coffee cherries growing on the farms and ends with the cup of coffee we love drinking so much.
Coffee processing and harvesting is a complicated process, which mostly happens behind the scenes of the cafés and coffee bars you enjoy visiting so much. Now we offer you a unique chance for a coffee experience behind the curtain. We dive deep in the world of coffee production with Jean Paul who, with 25 years of experience in the field, can tell all about the industry’s top farming and processing methods. Not only is this a unique opportunity to learn more about coffee production, but it is also an opportunity to personally meet the coffee farmers who have been growing our coffee with a lot of heart and passion.
