Gakenke Natural

The Gakenke washing station was built in 1991 and can process up to 750 metric tons of coffee a year. It has over 2500 small shareholders each with 250 coffee trees on average. Each tree yields roughly 1.5 kg of coffee cherry which means the average producer is able to sell 200-300 kg of coffee. The cherry is pulped within 6 hours of delivery and separated by density, then the coffee is fermented with water for 10-12 hours before being rinsed then sorted again for density. This repeated sorting results in a very consistently fermented and dried coffee.

Burundi naturals are great because the process generally doesn’t bring out too much fermentation of “funkiness” rather it provides an extra layer to the texture and accentuates the fruit notes to be more like a dried fruit. The coffee starts off with notes of navel orange then quickly transforms into milk chocolate and finishes very sweet and smooth.