Gasharu

This anaerobic natural processed lot is from the Gasharu washing station on the shores of Lake Kivu, Nyamasheke-Gatare district, Western Rwanda. Gasharu work with 1,075 smallholder farmers in the region, which is just a stone’s throw from Nyangwe Forest National Park, one of the largest and best preserved mountain rainforests in central Africa. The rainforest is home to an esimated 25% of Africa’s primates (excluding humans). Gasharu coffee is managed by Valentin Kamenyi. Valentin grew up in rural Rwanda in the 1990s. To him coffee had a mythical quality to it. “I was told coffee beans were sold abroad to make bullets. This was intriguing to me as I always imagined bullets to be magical, small and yet so noisy and powerful,” he recalls. Of course these childhood tales are now a thing of the past, yet coffee still carries special significance to him as the heart of his community.