Rwanda, the land of a thousand hills

Our last four days in the southern hemisphere were spent in the land of a thousand hills... better known as Rwanda. It was a short reconnaissance trip. We were there to get a better grasp of what was happening in the coffee sector and to begin networking with locals.

Rwanda is one of the worlds biggest producers of arabica coffee and the source of our first coffee line. We are currently buying our coffee through a broker, but this trip was the first step in the process of buying directly from the communities where the coffee is being grown.

We really enjoyed our time in Rwanda and are looking forward to getting back as soon as possible. There is still so so much work to be done! We're just getting started!

Here's a few pics from our time in Rwanda...

Members of a local church gave us gifts after we went to their church service. Their pastor, Pastor Maso, was assisting us in learning more about the coffee community. He introduced us to a local Gov't offical who showed us several large coffee farms and a wet processing factory.

This is a huge water collection pit. It provides the water for the coffee cleaning process. It is about 150 yards up hill from where the cleaning takes place.

The tanks where the coffe is washed. It was off season, so there wasn't much action.

The view from the other side. It was a pretty cool design and engineering. I really wished we would have been there during the harvest, so we could have experienced the whole process.

Bags of clean processed arabica ready to be shipped off. One day we'll be buying container loads of coffee just like this!!

Compassion = Action,

-Travis