UGANDA - Manafwa

The Flavour Profile

This fully washed Ugandan coffee delivers bright, sweet, and fruity flavor notes, making it a superb choice for filter or cafetière brewing. Its a Light to medium roast coffee, it has a delicate body with enticing hints of berries, currants, and sweet orange, ideal for enjoying at any time of day.

The Little Details

This coffee comes from Bulambuli district, Manafwa, sub-county town, Eastern Uganda- Mount Elgon region in Uganda. It’s grown 1600 - 1800 metres above sea level and its fully washed and sun dried on raised beds. It’s drawn from SL14 and SL28 varieties coffee beans.

About the Process

Kyagalanyi is one of the entities that makes possible for smallholders to participate in specialty markets. In Uganda, they operate three sustainable Arabica washing stations. The largest of these washing stations is located in the Mt. Elgon region, a programme that incorporates processing infrastructure with agricultural extension services

During the harvest season, Kyagalanyi encourages producers to deliver cherry to their new, state-of-the-art wet mill instead of hand pulping on their farm. This has given the programme increased control over processing activities, which can be challenging in the region as rains during the harvest season are common. Most farmers live fewer than 10 kilometres away from the washing station. Depending on distance and volumes, farmers will deliver coffee on foot or on a small motorbike. Kyagalanyi also has a truck that offers free transport services that visits every farmer group 1-2 times per week during harvest season. As the coffee trees flower multiple times, the harvest season is quite long (4-5 months). Farmers normally pick coffee at least once every week.

Kyagalanyi implements a 95% red cherry policy. When producers arrive at the Manafwa washing station, the washing station manager will check the cherry quality. If the quality is not good enough, farmers will have to sort their cherries at the station until 95% red before their coffee is purchased. Kyagalanyi provides tarpaulins and racks to assist in the sorting.

To conserve the environment, Manafwa washing station only uses eco-pulpers. All cherries are pulped on the day of purchase and separated by weight into first and second classes. The pulped coffee is then dry-fermented for 12 hours in the dry fermentation tank.

In the morning, the dry fermented coffee is washed in the washing bay next to the dry fermentation tank. This is done by hand. To benefit from the early morning sun, washing always takes place before 10 am.After washing, the parchment is pre-dried on ‘dripping racks’ for one day and then is moved to one of the Manafwa greenhouses for an additional day. As weather conditions at Manafwa (high altitude, so cold and always rainy during the harvest season) do not favour drying, the parchment is transferred to thegroup’s Mbale factory at the foot of Mt. Elgon after 2 days of drying. There the parchment is sun-dried and regularly sorted on drying tables - separated by lot - until dry. Depending on weather conditions this takes an average of 2 weeks.