Rwanda Shyira - Anoxic Natural
This is our third year working with the wonderful people at Shyira. They work alongside Muraho Trading Co. This partnership helps affiliate co-operatives increase their quality of production, fetch a higher price for their coffee, and introduce them to new markets.
Every washing station has its own washing station song. These have been created to instil a sense of pride and ownership to both full time and casual workers. Throughout the day groups of staff join together in song, dancing in the fermentation tanks, singing through five iterations of their song while stomping on the parchment. The process takes about 20 minutes and all the while, the fermentation process is assisted with the agitation of the coffee during the fermentation stage.
This sense of community can be found in every cup of this wonderful coffee we bring in and roast to perfection in from a truly remarkable part of the world. So here it is again - Shyira.
Rwanda Shyira - Process and Harvest
Once cherries are received, they are hand-picked and floated to ensure only those of the best quality continue to the processing stage. These cherries are placed into a deep cleaned fermentation tank. A sheet is then placed over the cherries, which is then submerged with cool water.
The seal created by the water pressing onto the sheeting creates a vacuum effect on the coffee below, creating an anoxic environment for fermentation to begin, which lasts for 48 hours. The water and sheet act as not only a sealant, but a heat exchange, allowing the heat build up to transfer to the water, which evaporates away. A stabilised temperature of around 25 degrees Celsius ensures that the cherry doesn’t over ferment. This temperature is regularly monitored, and if it falls too low for fermentation to continue, hot water is added to the water pillow, to provide warmth to the fermenting coffee underneath.
Once the fermentation is complete, the water is drained, and the sheet is removed. The now fermented coffee is rinsed and drained of all residual liquid.
To continue into the natural processing phase, coffee is dried in cherry on raised beds for between 4 to 5 weeks. The raised beds ensure optimum circulation of airflow, assisted by the cherry being turned every 30 minutes of the duration of its drying!
Chipp Coffee Co - Roastery Update
Things continue to be busy in the roastery and our old bones are working overtime to keep the good beans flowing for your insatiable appetites! In exciting news, we're also looking at expanding our little magic roastery so we can keep slinging beans thick and fast and get our name out there in more places than ever! We couldn't do this without your business and we appreciate that in a time when things are becoming more expensive than ever that you're still shopping local to help us not only survive this crazy time but thrive!
With the sun creeping its way through the clouds more and more and the weather consistently getting better we've topped up our stock of cold brewers so you can get your caffeine fix even when the sun is blaring down on us. If you're partial to a cold beverage our cold brewers pair perfectly with our fruity Ethiopia Bakele Belacho, deep and rich Zambia Kateshi or, if you're feeling especially fancy, our Colombia Marisela Sanchez or Honduras Finca Las Flores Geishas are absolutely incredible as a cold brew.
What We're Listening To
This month we've had a wide and varied playlist which changes as frequently as the weather. One band of note we've been listening to are The Toxhards! It's hard to pin down exactly what these musical magicians sound like due to their wide range of musical influences. One song of note is Ængus, The Prize-Winning Hog, which can only be described as System Of A Down meets Queen. Other great tracks include Doombop, which is a modern more chaotic take on artists similar to The Beach Boys, and Should We Get A Dog? which has a classic rock and roll feel about getting lots of dogs. Whats not to love! Give them a crack they're a super fun band who we haven't been able to get out of our head for a few weeks now!
