Maraba coffee (; ) is grown in the Maraba area of southern Rwanda. Maraba's coffee plants are the Bourbon variety of the Coffea arabica species and are grown on fertile volcanic soils on high-altitude hills. The fruit is handpicked, mostly during the rainy season between March and May, and brought to a washing station in Maraba, where the coffee beans are extracted and dried. At several stages, the beans are sorted according to quality. The farmers receive credits based on the quantity and quality of the beans they produce.
The beans are sold to various roasting companies, including Union Coffee Roasters of the United Kingdom who produce a Fairtrade-certified brand, and Community Coffee of the United States. Rwanda Smallholder Specialty Coffee Company (RWASHOSCCO) buys from Maraba and sells to the domestic market. Maraba coffee is also brewed into a beer.
About 1,600 smallholder farmers grow the coffee plants under the Abahuzamugambi cooperative, founded in 1999. Since 2000, the cooperative has been supported by the National University of Rwanda (UNR) and the Partnership for Enhancing Agriculture in Rwanda through Linkages (PEARL). The cooperative has improved coffee quality and penetrated the speciality market.
History
Origins Rwandans have been growing coffee since colonial times, but until 1999 the product was classed below Grade C, making it unsellable on the global markets.New York Coffee Exchange Overview coffeeresearch.org (Accessed 21 September 2006) The farmers did not have the means to wash and prepare their coffee cherries to specifications in a timely manner. Buyers paid US$0.33 per kilogram, a price that kept the farmers poor.
In 1999, 220 coffee growers formed an association in the Maraba District (part of the former Butare Province) to tackle this problem. Many of these farmers had lost family members during the 1994 genocide, while others had husbands in prison, accused of participating in the killings and due to face trial in the traditional gacaca courts.Rwandan cooperative shows reconciliation needed to draw refugees home, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (Accessed 21 September 2006) They named the association Abahuzamugambi, a Kinyarwanda word for people who work together to achieve a goal. The farmers hoped that by forming the association, they would increase revenue by selling directly to exporters in Kigali instead of through an intermediary transport company. They divided their profits and used them to buy tools, fertilisers and seeds to increase yields.The Maraba Bourbon Coffee Story... Partnership to Enhance Agriculture in Rwanda (PEARL) (Accessed 21 September 2006)
In 2000, the mayor of Maraba requested development aid from the National University of Rwanda (UNR), based in nearby Butare; the following year UNR helped found the Partnership for Enhancing Agriculture in Rwanda through Linkages (PEARL). Several entities supported the PEARL project: USAID, Michigan State University, Texas A&M University and various Rwandan bodies including UNR, (ISAR) and the Kigali Institute of Science, Technology and Management (KIST). PEARL started working with Abahuzamugambi in February 2001 to improve the coffee quality to standards required by the speciality coffee market in the United States.
The coffee farmers of Maraba first needed a washing station to remove the slimy sugar-rich outer coating of the coffee bean, under the skin. If this sugar is not removed within 12 hours of picking, it may ferment, and the flavour of the coffee is then impaired. They built the first station in July 2001 in the Cyarumbo sector, close to the main road, with funding from UNR, the (OCIR-Café), ACDI/VOCA, and the national agricultural research institute ISAR. The opening was late in the harvest season, so only of that year's harvest were suitable for washing. However, the results were reasonably good, and the station was upgraded to allow more coffee to be processed in 2002. To bring mineral water from Mount Huye to the upgraded station, ACDI/VOCA helped fund a pipeline, which opened in March 2002.
A new certification system was introduced for the 2002 harvest to ensure that beans brought to the station were of suitable quality. Around half of the Abahuzamugambi membership attained the certification, which allowed the cooperative to look for serious buyers in the speciality markets of Europe and North America.
International acceptance
PEARL brought a speciality coffee expert to Rwanda, who put them in touch with a seller, Louisiana-based Community Coffee, to help market Maraba."Cup of Good Hope" The Greater Baton Rouge Business Report, 7 January 2003 issue. Web version retrieved by Internet Archive from the Business Report website on 26 June 2004. (Accessed 21 September 2006) They sent samples to Louisiana, and in June 2002 a representative from Community visited Maraba. Rwandan president Paul Kagame was also present, as the government placed great importance on the project."President Kagame commends Maraba coffee farmers" Government of Rwanda official website (Accessed 21 September 2006) Community purchased an container of Maraba beans at the above-average rate of US$3 per kilogram. The beans were transported to Louisiana, where they were roasted and blended into one of the company's gourmet coffees. This was the first direct contract between an American roaster and an African coffee cooperative.
Comic Relief also took an interest in Maraba. The 2001 Red Nose Day campaign had brought in £55 million for projects in the UK and Africa, some of which they pledged to the (AVEGA), an association of widows of the 1994 Rwandan genocide."Rwanda's genocide could have been prevented. The UN let people die and now it watches as the survivors die" The Observer 28 March 2004. (Accessed 21 September 2006). The charity discovered that many of the Maraba smallholders were also members of AVEGA and could thus provide funding and support. They contacted Union Coffee Roasters (UCR), a British roasting company, whose representatives visited Maraba in 2002 with officials from the Fairtrade Labelling Organisation (FLO). This group inspected the Maraba site and granted certification, making Maraba coffee the first Rwandan cooperative to gain Fairtrade status. Union Coffee Roasters (Accessed 21 September 2006) UCR described the coffee as containing "sparkling citrus flavours complemented by deep, sweet chocolate notes" and bought all the remaining produce from the 2002 harvest. Union Coffee Roasters (Accessed 27 September 2006)
UCR distributed its Maraba coffee in early 2003 via Sainsbury's supermarkets,Rwandan coffee hits Sainsbury's Developments, the DFID International Development Magazine, Issue 25. (Accessed 21 September 2006) which sold the product in all 350 of its stores in the run up to that year's Red Nose Day. Union Coffee Roasters (Accessed 21 September 2006) In 2003, the Abahuzamugambi Cooperative made US$35,000 in net profits. Of this, 70 percent was divided among the farmers at US$0.75 per kilogram provided, an amount more than three times that paid to other coffee growers in Rwanda and sufficient to pay for health care and education services which were not previously affordable.Maraba Coffee – Some facts. Formerly at www.marabacoffee.org/MarabaFacts.html – MarabaCoffee.org website. (Accessed 19 September 2006). Information also available at Maraba Coffee – Some facts – coffeemachinereviewer.com website. (Accessed 19 September 2006) The remaining 30 percent was invested back into the cooperative and spent on buying calcium carbonate, an agricultural lime used to reduce acidity in the soil caused by runoff containing minerals after rainfall.Significance of Lime Application in Coffee Plantations INeedCoffee. (Accessed 21 September 2006)
Independence
Beginning in 2003, PEARL deemed the operation self-sufficient and reduced financial support for the Abahuzamugambi Cooperative. The cooperative provided its growers with loans that helped improve living standards and allowed for livestock investments, affordable medical insurance, and education. A cooperative bank was opened in the village in March, enabling farmers to maintain and manage their own funds locally, rather than having to trek the long distance to Butare. Union Coffee Roasters. (Accessed 21 September 2006)
In late 2004, London-based Meantime Brewing began offering a coffee beer made out of beans grown in Maraba.Rwandan coffee used to make beer BBC News, 8 December 2004. (Accessed 21 September 2006) The drink was intended as an alcoholic iced cappuccino or digestif. The head brewer tasted coffees from around the world but decided that the hints of vanilla and chocolate in Maraba coffee made it more suitable than the nutty and bitter coffees from South America. The original beer had an alcohol content of 4 percent and the same caffeine content as coffee, and was described as having a "silky, velvety character". It was sold in larger branches of Sainsbury's and in some pubs and clubs. The beverage was one of only two Fairtrade beers available on the UK market until 2006,Fairtrade certified products: Beer and Ale (PDF) The Fairtrade Foundation (Accessed 21 September 2006) when a reduction in the proportion of coffee and an increased alcohol content (now 6 percent) cost it its Fairtrade status, although it was still made using Maraba beans.Gold Medal Coffee Beer Meantime Brewing (Accessed 21 September 2006) At the time of its launch, Meantime Coffee Porter was the only coffee beer available in the British Isles, and it won the gold medal for the coffee-flavoured beer category at the 2006 World Beer Cup.2006 Brewers Association World Beer Cup Winners Brewers Association. (Accessed 21 September 2014)
As the cooperative grew, it built additional washing stations across the area. The first of these was located at Kabuye and opened in 2004. The third station, at Sovu, became operational one year later in 2005, and the fourth, at Kibingo, in 2007.
In 2006, the Swedish Minister for Development Co-operation and Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carin Jamtin, visited Maraba to extend cooperation between Sweden and Rwanda and expose Maraba coffee to the Swedish speciality market."Swedish Minister Praises Maraba Coffee Growers" The New Times, Kigali, 10 May 2006. Reproduced at Rwanda Development Gateway. (Accessed 21 September 2006). In July 2006, a telecentre was opened in Maraba under the coordination of PEARL. USAID, UNR and Washington State University (WSU) Extension's Center to Bridge the Digital Divide (CBDD) provided funding and resources. Three WSU students spent six weeks in Rwanda helping to set up the centre and train the local staff.Willy Mugenzi, "Maraba Coffee Growers Get US$15,000 Tele-Center" Africa News Service, Kigali, 18 July 2006. (Accessed 21 September 2006) USAID continued to be involved with the coffee industry in Rwanda, including Maraba, through the Sustaining Partnerships to enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development (SPREAD) programme, launched in 2006. This was a multi-year collaboration with OCIR-Café with the goal of improving access to cooperatives for farmers, and also identifying specific taste characteristics of coffees in different regions of Rwanda. In a 2011 report on geographical indicators for products in Africa, French economist Thierry Coulet wrote that the SPREAD programme was pursuing a designation of origin certification for Rwandan coffee, including that of Maraba in particular.
Recent years