Rwanda Simbi Shanga

Know where your coffee comes from

The Shanga Coffee was processed in the Simbi washing station and is located in the Huye
district of Rwanda’s southern province and services 1,850 smallholder coffee farmers who all grow high quality Arabica red bourbon coffee.

Simbi is a privately owned washing station operated by Abdul Rudahunga, who was inspired to get into the coffee business by his grandmother. She was also a coffee farmer and one of the few rural Rwandans that roasted and enjoyed her own coffee as part of her daily routine.
Simbi Coffee Washing Station was built in 2011 and 2012, the season of 2013 was the first for this investor in the region. That season, Simbi CWS employs an average of 85 people over a period of three months, out of them around 80% are women. The cherries are well handpicked, washed, well sorted after fermentation step, fully sun dried on
dry tables and hand sorted to ensure only the best coffee beans are processed.

The washing station was established as recently as 2013 with the construction of a 300 metric ton per season cherry processing facility, and a 2.8 tons per hour pulping machine. Following the pulping of freshly delivered cherry, the coffee is wet fermented and then the beans are sorted by density using water filled grading channels. The wet parchment is dried under cover for 24 hours before being moved to uncovered drying beds for an average of 15 days. During that period the coffee is continually hand sorted by an army of brightly clothed women who are meticulous in their removal of defect beans.

Want to know more? Check our Direct Trade page here.