We chose our second coffee from Uganda to be filter brewed. This year’s harvest was really good in Uganda and we would like to show the beauty of coffee from this unusual origin. We believe Muduku, is a wonderful example of the growing quality of coffee in Uganda.
Coffee Gardens, from whom we purchased our coffee through our friends at Falcon was founded in 2017 with the aim of producing incredible ethically sourced coffee and offering a transparent and direct connection between coffee growers and consumers. At the start of the 2022 season they dismantled their old washing station and rebuilt it in a new location to expand their capacity and produce more coffee.
The Coffee Gardens project was established with many goals in mind such as improving farmers’ incomes and livelihoods, creating and securing rural employment, promoting gender equality, increasing transparency and traceability throughout the supply chain, promoting and working to protect the environment in the area and providing Good Agricultural Practices (GAP) training to farmers.
Coffee farms also motivate and reward farmers in a variety of monetary and non-monetary ways. These include post-season bonuses, additional income and employment opportunities, tree distribution, and a number of year-round training programs. Coffee Gardens is transparent with its partner farmers regarding purchasing policies and prices. It provides each registered farmer with a contract and a buyout record book, informs registered farmers of any price changes via SMS and provides receipts for each transaction.
Our micro lot coffee is grown by farmers on the mountain above The Coffee Gardens washing station. The farmers bring the coffee cherries down to the processing station themselves thus earning extra income.
This lot comes from cherries from 281 farmers, 20% of whom are women farmers. Farmers received 65% of the FOB price from the lot.
The coffee cherries are delivered and sorted at the station by 4 employees who are dedicated to this work. The cherries are crushed and then soaked in cold mountain water. The beans are then immersed in tanks for a 40-hour signal fermentation. The coffee is then washed to remove any floating substances. It is then moved to dry the husks on raised beds in the shade for 2-3 days. Finally the coffee is transferred to a solar dryer and dried for a further 10 days until it reaches 15-25 % depending on the season and local weather. The processed beans are then transported down the hill to their drying facility in Mbale where they are dried for a further 10 days to below 11%. The coffee is then left to rest before being prepared for grinding and shipping.
Notes from our baristas: Muduku is a high sweetness filter coffee. It’s a fairly conservative coffee. Definitely don’t expect high fruitiness from it. We were very surprised by its drinkability and high sweetness. The coffee has a pleasant mild citric acidity full body and a pleasantly spicy aftertaste. It is dominated by notes of candied fruit, stone fruit sweetness reminiscent of nectarine or peach and a subtle spicy flavour of gingerbread or cloves.
