Katete Rukungiri Robusta FW

This Fully washed Robusta perfectly showcases how Uganda’s rich volcanic soil and high altitudes create the ideal conditions for cultivating dense, sweet cherries. Coffee is cultivated by smallholder farmers working on plots typically smaller than one hectare. Their smallscale approach allows for attentive crop management, resulting in higher-quality cherries. These cherries are then carefully processed at Katete CWS, ensuring consistent, reliable cup profiles. 

For this lot, expect a comforting sweetness of maple syrup and milk chocolate, balanced by a refined black tea aroma.  

Harvest: May-July, November-January

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Most farms are inherited from parents and grandparents. Now, as coffee farming becomes more lucrative, farmers are renovating and expanding their inherited farms. Farmers typically intercrop their coffee with subsistence and cash crops including bananas, beans, vanilla, passion fruit, cassava, maize and groundnuts.  

Due to small farm sizes, harvesting is typically done by farmers and their families. Ripe red cherries are selectively handpicked and sorted before being pulped at Katete. After pulping, coffee is dry fermented from 12 to 14 hours. After this stage, the parchment is washed to remove all remaining mucilage. Parchment is then transferred to dry on raised beds or on patios. Throughout this stage, workers rake parchment frequently to ensure even drying. It takes approximately 2 to 3 weeks to complete drying, depending on the weather.   

While sensory characteristics can vary from lot to lot and crop to crop, we typically find notes of: black tea, maple syrup, almond, dandelion tea and milk chocolate

Our partner, UGACOF/Sucafina Uganda is committed to improving quality in Uganda by building new washing stations and infrastructure and training personnel in the region. Collaborations with our FarmerHub program and our sustainability partner, the Kahawatu Foundation, are building upon our work to expand farmers’ access to better resources and better training. Our connections to our more established operations in nearby Rwanda, Burundi and Kenya offer us advice and a perspective steeped in a familiarity with East Africa.

The bulk of our work in Uganda is focused in the West, near the Rwenzori Mountains. The biggest difference between East (Mount Elgon) and West (Rwenzori) is that Mount Elgon is a more established and competitive market. We are excited to be at the forefront of the drive for enhancing coffee production infrastructure, developing the industry and becoming reliable partners for farmers in the Rwenzori Mountain region.

It is clear to us that the potential in this region might exceed our expectations and even the potential of the popular Mount Elgon region. With an ever-growing demand for high quality Arabicas and a sustained interest from roasters and coffee drinkers in the East African origins, we are very confident that, with diligence and effort, Western Ugandan coffees will be able to take their place alongside the other great East African coffees. ​

While the scale of work in regions like this can sometimes be overwhelming, we have a clear plan that steadily increases coffee quality.

Our first step is the one that leads to the most immediate and noticeable improvement: harvesting techniques. Due to a long history of home-processing and a lack of incentive for high quality, harvesting in the region is often semi- or entirely non-selective. Thanks to our extended network of cherry collection sites, we meet with farmers every day during the harvest season and can give real-time feedback that can impact the quality of the next day’s harvest. At the collection sites, we can insist on higher levels of care and reward meticulous picking. Though we’re still in the early years, we have seen a clear difference in quality from one year to another and even from the first week of the harvest to the last.

Future steps will include working with farmers to improve their access to materials and knowledge of better farming practices. This means making fertilizer more accessible, encouraging farmers to plant shade canopies and more. We’re planning on building demonstration plots, input access sites across the region and training a new generation of skilled washing station staff. We know it will take time, but we have a strategy and are committed to realizing this vision.