{"title":"Rwanda","description":"","products":[{"product_id":"kinini-village-dufatanye-farmer-group-fully-washed-16-5","title":"Kinini Village , Dufatanye Farmer Group, Fully Washed 16\/5","description":"“Kinini” translates loosely as “this big thing right here,” an apt name for one of the most ambitious and unconventional coffee projects we've encountered. Founded in 2014 by Jacqueline Turner, it began by leasing unused land, distributing free seedlings, and paying farmers for several years while trees matured. Once production began, farmers retained 100% of cherry payments and earned quality bonuses, with centralized processing at the Kinini washing station providing consistency, traceability, and access to market.\n\nToday, Kinini brings together hundreds of smallholder farmers north of Kigali, roughly 85% of them women. Gender equity training—led by Seraphina, Kinini’s farmer liaison—led to the formation of women-led sub-groups within Kinini Village, the farms closest to the washing station. These groups organize collectively, reinvest premiums into their farms, and advocate for shared needs within the cooperative.\n\nCrop to Cup focused on Kinini Village after cupping revealed its standout quality potential and has since worked with Kinini to develop traceable, women-led microlots. In 2025, that work fully aligned quality, transparency, and exportable volume, setting the stage for continued refinement and growth in the years ahead.","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb $20.40 ($10.20\/lb)","offer_id":46063295430716,"sku":"INV05056-2","price":20.4,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"10 lb $93.60 ($9.36\/lb)","offer_id":46063295463484,"sku":"INV05056-10","price":93.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"33 lb $284.46 ($8.62\/lb)","offer_id":46063295496252,"sku":"INV05056-33","price":284.46,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"66 lb $539.22 ($8.17\/lb)","offer_id":46063295529020,"sku":"INV05056-66","price":539.22,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag (132.28lbs) $992.10 ($7.50\/lb)","offer_id":46063295561788,"sku":"INV05056-full","price":992.1,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $10.20","offer_id":67635567427644,"sku":"INV05056-sample","price":10.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Village-Dufatanye-Farmer-Group-Fully-Washed-16-5.png?v=1785164103"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-abateranankunga-farmer-group-fully-washed-19-5","title":"Kinini Village , Abateranankunga Farmer Group, Fully Washed 19\/5","description":"“Kinini” translates loosely as “this big thing right here,” an apt name for one of the most ambitious and unconventional coffee projects we've encountered. Founded in 2014 by Jacqueline Turner, it began by leasing unused land, distributing free seedlings, and paying farmers for several years while trees matured. Once production began, farmers retained 100% of cherry payments and earned quality bonuses, with centralized processing at the Kinini washing station providing consistency, traceability, and access to market.\n\nToday, Kinini brings together hundreds of smallholder farmers north of Kigali, roughly 85% of them women. Gender equity training—led by Seraphina, Kinini’s farmer liaison—led to the formation of women-led sub-groups within Kinini Village, the farms closest to the washing station. These groups organize collectively, reinvest premiums into their farms, and advocate for shared needs within the cooperative.\n\nCrop to Cup focused on Kinini Village after cupping revealed its standout quality potential and has since worked with Kinini to develop traceable, women-led microlots. In 2025, that work fully aligned quality, transparency, and exportable volume, setting the stage for continued refinement and growth in the years ahead.","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb $20.38 ($10.19\/lb)","offer_id":46063295201340,"sku":"INV05055-2","price":20.38,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"10 lb $93.50 ($9.35\/lb)","offer_id":46063295234108,"sku":"INV05055-10","price":93.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb $284.13 ($8.61\/lb)","offer_id":46063295266876,"sku":"INV05055-33","price":284.13,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb $538.56 ($8.16\/lb)","offer_id":46063295299644,"sku":"INV05055-66","price":538.56,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag (132.28lbs) $990.78 ($7.49\/lb)","offer_id":46063295332412,"sku":"INV05055-full","price":990.78,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $10.19","offer_id":67635567722556,"sku":"INV05055-sample","price":10.19,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Village-Abateranankunga-Farmer-Group-Fully-Washed-19-5.png?v=1785164122"},{"product_id":"dukorere-kawa-bukure-nova-washing-station-natural-lot-21","title":"Dukorere Kawa Bukure, Nova Washing Station, Natural Lot 21","description":"Nova Coffee is led by nurse-pharmacist team (and married couple) of Agnes Mukamushinja and Felix Hitayezu, who came to coffee after running Pharmacie Nova in Kigali. Their move into the sector began in 2015, grounded in a formal mission to improve community livelihoods through better farming practices and a women-centered model for processing. They purchased an aging washing station in Bukure and rebuilt it as a professionalized hub for local growers.\n\nAgnes’s personal connection to coffee is rooted in her home village, where most trees were destroyed during the genocide—trees her father had supported for decades as an agronomist. Once in Bukure, she tapped every available resource: government trainings, NAEB programs, Rwanda’s IWCA chapter, and value-add opportunities. One outcome was Le Café de Mamans, a roasted brand produced with 263 women farmers of the Berwa Cooperative and sold domestically.\n\nToday, Nova receives cherry from three cooperatives—Jyambere Muhinzi Wakawa, Dukorere Kawa, and Berwa—alongside smallholders adjacent to the station. Their team includes a full-time agronomist, experienced operations leads, and QC manager Celeste, who oversees processing and drying. Continued willingness to experiment, as shown with a variety of naturals and anaerobic coffees, reflect Nova’s push toward higher-quality processing and expanded market access for farmers in the Bukure sector.","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb $20.18 ($10.09\/lb)","offer_id":46063293923388,"sku":"INV04900-2","price":20.18,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"10 lb $92.50 ($9.25\/lb)","offer_id":46063293956156,"sku":"INV04900-10","price":92.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb $280.83 ($8.51\/lb)","offer_id":46063293988924,"sku":"INV04900-33","price":280.83,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb $531.96 ($8.06\/lb)","offer_id":46063294021692,"sku":"INV04900-66","price":531.96,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag (132.28lbs) $977.55 ($7.39\/lb)","offer_id":46063294054460,"sku":"INV04900-full","price":977.55,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $10.09","offer_id":67635569983548,"sku":"INV04900-sample","price":10.09,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Dukorere-Kawa-Bukure-Nova-Washing-Station-Natural-Lot-21.png?v=1785164508"},{"product_id":"dukorere-kawa-bukure-nova-washing-station-anaerobic-lot-10","title":"Dukorere Kawa Bukure, Nova Washing Station, Anaerobic Lot 10","description":"\u003cp\u003eNova Coffee is led by nurse-pharmacist team (and married couple) of Agnes Mukamushinja and Felix Hitayezu, who came to coffee after running Pharmacie Nova in Kigali. Their move into the sector began in 2015, grounded in a formal mission to improve community livelihoods through better farming practices and a women-centered model for processing. They purchased an aging washing station in Bukure and rebuilt it as a professionalized hub for local growers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAgnes’s personal connection to coffee is rooted in her home village, where most trees were destroyed during the genocide—trees her father had supported for decades as an agronomist. Once in Bukure, she tapped every available resource: government trainings, NAEB programs, Rwanda’s IWCA chapter, and value-add opportunities. One outcome was Le Café de Mamans, a roasted brand produced with 263 women farmers of the Berwa Cooperative and sold domestically.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eToday, Nova receives cherry from three cooperatives—Jyambere Muhinzi Wakawa, Dukorere Kawa, and Berwa—alongside smallholders adjacent to the station. Their team includes a full-time agronomist, experienced operations leads, and QC manager Celeste, who oversees processing and drying. Continued willingness to experiment, as shown with a variety of naturals and anaerobic coffees, reflect Nova’s push toward higher-quality processing and expanded market access for farmers in the Bukure sector.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927083409468,"sku":"INV04899-2","price":23.46,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927083376700,"sku":"INV04899-10","price":108.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927083343932,"sku":"INV04899-33","price":334.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927083311164,"sku":"INV04899-66","price":640.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927083278396,"sku":"INV04899-full","price":1194.49,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $11.73","offer_id":67630063878204,"sku":"INV04899-sample","price":11.73,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Dukorere-Kawa-Bukure-Nova-Washing-Station-Anaerobic-Lot-10.png?v=1785164528"},{"product_id":"kinini-coffee-cooperative-kinini-village-washed-lot-9-6","title":"Kinini Coffee Cooperative, Kinini Village, Washed, Lot 9-6","description":"\u003cp\u003e“Kinini” means “this big thing right here,” a fitting name for a project that blends community development with specialty coffee, with a pointed emphasis on empowering women. The initiative was launched in 2014 by Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear, who had previously established schools, pharmacies, and microfinance institutions in rural Rwanda. Coffee became their way to build long-term, self-sustaining impact.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKinini’s structure is unusual: rather than buying cherry from established farms, the group leased unused parcels, distributed seedlings, and offered training to local farmers on how to cultivate quality coffee. In return, members deliver their harvests to the Kinini washing station, ensuring centralized processing and market access. This model was made possible with support from the Rwandan Development Bank and years of persistence in lobbying, organizing, and building trust.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eToday, Kinini unites hundreds of smallholder farmers across the hills north of Kigali—85% of them women—under a system that combines technical training, infrastructure, and reinvestment of premiums into education, healthcare, and gender equity. Since its first harvest in 2017, Kinini has established itself as one of Rwanda’s most forward-looking producer groups, demonstrating how cooperative organization and quality-driven practices can reshape local economies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927123714108,"sku":"INV04236-2","price":20.24,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927123681340,"sku":"INV04236-10","price":92.8,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927123648572,"sku":"INV04236-33","price":281.82,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927123615804,"sku":"INV04236-66","price":533.94,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927123583036,"sku":"INV04236-full","price":981.52,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $10.12","offer_id":67630066008124,"sku":"INV04236-sample","price":10.12,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Coffee-Cooperative-Kinini-Village-Washed-Lot-9-6.png?v=1785165119"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-washed-lot-5-24","title":"Kinini Village, Washed, Lot 5-24","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Kinini\" means, literally, 'this big thing right here'. It is the name of the collaboration of cooperatives seeking to pool their efforts to improve their lots. 85% of the members are women-- we met this group through the IWCA and found the lot from Tumba Village to be something worth sharing. Kinini is also the name of a washing station and cooperative located in Kinini town, which collects from the neighboring villages of Tumba and Mageragere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand how a group can produce 87 point coffee in their first year of production, you have to understand the people behind the coffee. Dreamers. That's what everyone called Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear when they wanted to start a school for children in Eastern Rwanda 10 years ago. Driven by the desire to help the children of the genocide, they made that dream a reality. As they got to know that community they realized that these children needed much more than just education, and consequently, they lobbied the local government and international donors to support the construction of a local pharmacy, micro-finance credit institution, and other services to support the community that supports these children. What these two have accomplished for that community would be more than enough for any of us to hang our hat on and rest on our laurels, but they were not satisfied. Jacquie wanted to do more to help her fellow Rwandans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo she and Malcolm started dreaming again. This time they dream of possibilities in coffee. They wanted to find a way to have generational impact on communities without having to continually fundraise money for aid projects. At this time they didn't know anything about coffee, but they knew that the Rwandan government was supporting a transition towards specialty coffee. Malcolm and Jacquie wanted to see how far they could leverage that goodwill towards helping a community. They spent years soliciting advice from experts across the coffee industry and traveled all over Rwanda to look for a community that was interested in such a venture and was conducive for growing good coffee. After countless hours walking around farms with agronomists and soil-scientists, they settled on an area just an hour north of Kigali. This spot is not only stunning for its views, but its high elevation that dwarfs even the well-known Lake Kivu region. There was only one issue: not a lot of coffee was being grown there. So they dreamt up a solution. What if... they gave farmers coffee to grow? What if... they gave farmers technical support on how to grow good coffee? What if...they gave farmers a washing station to process it? What if...they gave farmers a dry mill to further process it? What if...they set up an export company in Rwanda to sell it, and an import company in the UK to own it even further? What if...10% of the profits went directly to development project investments (in education, health, etc.) What if...they helped organize these farmers so that they could manage themselves and eventually the business without them? What if...  It was a lot of dreaming, that was met with a lot of doors being slammed in their face. Set-backs that would deter the most resilient of us did nothing to dissuade these two from their goal. After years of lobbying the local government, the Development Bank of Rwanda, farmers themselves, and countless other parties, their project was finally green-lit in 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe structure of the project was unprecedented. Kinini Coffee signed a \"lease\" on parcels of land owned by various farmers throughout the area. This lease stipulated that Kinini would provide all these farmers with coffee trees, training, and organization. All the farmers had to do was agree to deliver these cherries to the Kinini Washing Station when they fruited in the future, for which they would be paid. For the most part, the chosen parcels sat on unused land that wasn't being farmed yet. The due-diligence done on this lease took over a year. It was printed in triplicate for every farmer by the lawyers at the local and federal government to make sure farmers weren't being taken advantage of. They had never seen anything like it. They just kept asking, \"Why would you invest so much into farmers that have done nothing for you?\". Their answer, \"Because it's the right thing to do\". As a sign of good-faith, Malcolm put up his own life-insurance policy as collateral to the loan by the Rwandan Development Bank. They started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers, setting up trainings, building their washing station, and organizing farmers. Their learning curve in coffee was meteoric. Whenever they needed an answer to a coffee question, they would ask three specialists instead of one and triangulate their responses before making the most informed decision. A truly detailed-oriented team. The result? In 2017, three years after the trees had been planted, they had their first harvest of any substantive volume. It was a frenzy of activity. Samples were being sent to different Q-graders around Rwanda for evaluation so they could start to identify different areas for separation in the future. First year issues were being hashed out and triaged as needed. Choices were made not just for the sake of a certifying body, or a 3rd party auditor, but because they were in the best interest of the farmers and the coffee. An example of this was the gender equity trainings they were conducting. They did this not because they were asked to by a certifier, but because they thought it was vitally important to value women in the supply chain. Farmer group development continued and logical lot separations started to present themselves, such as the Tumba Village area. They had no idea how their coffee was going to taste, but they poured their heart and soul into it anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result? The care taken at the farm (by farmers incentivized to do so), at the washing station, during cherry collection, and on the drying tables paid off. They had done it! This is the very moment we met them. Malcolm and Jacquie had been so busy building Kinini Coffee that they were just getting around to figuring out how to sell the coffee. We fell in love with both the story and the coffee and snagged their first export to the United States that year. The quality demanded a price that helped to justify the amount of time and energy everyone had put into the venture. Farmers were happy with the new income stream and the price paid as well. The lot selection we chose was from the Tumba Village area, which Crop to Cup was lucky enough to visit the following spring. This is only the beginning of their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's next? It would take an entire book to describe their ambitions, but a quick preview of things to come are...A new cupping lab at the washing station, A new dry mill next to the washing station, A satellite project with a space imaging company to identify soil characteristics for their farmers and help inform what makes the most sense to grow. To be clear, the word is getting out about Kinini. About their unique model, about their coffee, and their incredible leadership. We feel privileged to be part of their growth and proud to be the champion of their coffee in the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927159332924,"sku":"INV03446-2","price":19.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927159300156,"sku":"INV03446-10","price":87.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927159267388,"sku":"INV03446-33","price":264.66,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927159234620,"sku":"INV03446-66","price":499.62,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927159201852,"sku":"INV03446-full","price":912.73,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.60","offer_id":67630068301884,"sku":"INV03446-sample","price":9.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Village-Washed-Lot-5-24.png?v=1785165683"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-natural","title":"Kinini Village Natural","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Kinini\" means, literally, 'this big thing right here'. It is the name of the collaboration of cooperatives seeking to pool their efforts to improve their lots. 85% of the members are women-- we met this group through the IWCA and found the lot from Tumba Village to be something worth sharing. Kinini is also the name of a washing station and cooperative located in Kinini town, which collects from the neighboring villages of Tumba and Mageragere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand how a group can produce 87 point coffee in their first year of production, you have to understand the people behind the coffee. Dreamers. That's what everyone called Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear when they wanted to start a school for children in Eastern Rwanda 10 years ago. Driven by the desire to help the children of the genocide, they made that dream a reality. As they got to know that community they realized that these children needed much more than just education, and consequently, they lobbied the local government and international donors to support the construction of a local pharmacy, micro-finance credit institution, and other services to support the community that supports these children. What these two have accomplished for that community would be more than enough for any of us to hang our hat on and rest on our laurels, but they were not satisfied. Jacquie wanted to do more to help her fellow Rwandans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo she and Malcolm started dreaming again. This time they dream of possibilities in coffee. They wanted to find a way to have generational impact on communities without having to continually fundraise money for aid projects. At this time they didn't know anything about coffee, but they knew that the Rwandan government was supporting a transition towards specialty coffee. Malcolm and Jacquie wanted to see how far they could leverage that goodwill towards helping a community. They spent years soliciting advice from experts across the coffee industry and traveled all over Rwanda to look for a community that was interested in such a venture and was conducive for growing good coffee. After countless hours walking around farms with agronomists and soil-scientists, they settled on an area just an hour north of Kigali. This spot is not only stunning for its views, but its high elevation that dwarfs even the well-known Lake Kivu region. There was only one issue: not a lot of coffee was being grown there. So they dreamt up a solution. What if... they gave farmers coffee to grow? What if... they gave farmers technical support on how to grow good coffee? What if...they gave farmers a washing station to process it? What if...they gave farmers a dry mill to further process it? What if...they set up an export company in Rwanda to sell it, and an import company in the UK to own it even further? What if...10% of the profits went directly to development project investments (in education, health, etc.) What if...they helped organize these farmers so that they could manage themselves and eventually the business without them? What if...  It was a lot of dreaming, that was met with a lot of doors being slammed in their face. Set-backs that would deter the most resilient of us did nothing to dissuade these two from their goal. After years of lobbying the local government, the Development Bank of Rwanda, farmers themselves, and countless other parties, their project was finally green-lit in 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe structure of the project was unprecedented. Kinini Coffee signed a \"lease\" on parcels of land owned by various farmers throughout the area. This lease stipulated that Kinini would provide all these farmers with coffee trees, training, and organization. All the farmers had to do was agree to deliver these cherries to the Kinini Washing Station when they fruited in the future, for which they would be paid. For the most part, the chosen parcels sat on unused land that wasn't being farmed yet. The due-diligence done on this lease took over a year. It was printed in triplicate for every farmer by the lawyers at the local and federal government to make sure farmers weren't being taken advantage of. They had never seen anything like it. They just kept asking, \"Why would you invest so much into farmers that have done nothing for you?\". Their answer, \"Because it's the right thing to do\". As a sign of good-faith, Malcolm put up his own life-insurance policy as collateral to the loan by the Rwandan Development Bank. They started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers, setting up trainings, building their washing station, and organizing farmers. Their learning curve in coffee was meteoric. Whenever they needed an answer to a coffee question, they would ask three specialists instead of one and triangulate their responses before making the most informed decision. A truly detailed-oriented team. The result? In 2017, three years after the trees had been planted, they had their first harvest of any substantive volume. It was a frenzy of activity. Samples were being sent to different Q-graders around Rwanda for evaluation so they could start to identify different areas for separation in the future. First year issues were being hashed out and triaged as needed. Choices were made not just for the sake of a certifying body, or a 3rd party auditor, but because they were in the best interest of the farmers and the coffee. An example of this was the gender equity trainings they were conducting. They did this not because they were asked to by a certifier, but because they thought it was vitally important to value women in the supply chain. Farmer group development continued and logical lot separations started to present themselves, such as the Tumba Village area. They had no idea how their coffee was going to taste, but they poured their heart and soul into it anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result? The care taken at the farm (by farmers incentivized to do so), at the washing station, during cherry collection, and on the drying tables paid off. They had done it! This is the very moment we met them. Malcolm and Jacquie had been so busy building Kinini Coffee that they were just getting around to figuring out how to sell the coffee. We fell in love with both the story and the coffee and snagged their first export to the United States that year. The quality demanded a price that helped to justify the amount of time and energy everyone had put into the venture. Farmers were happy with the new income stream and the price paid as well. The lot selection we chose was from the Tumba Village area, which Crop to Cup was lucky enough to visit the following spring. This is only the beginning of their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's next? It would take an entire book to describe their ambitions, but a quick preview of things to come are...A new cupping lab at the washing station, A new dry mill next to the washing station, A satellite project with a space imaging company to identify soil characteristics for their farmers and help inform what makes the most sense to grow. To be clear, the word is getting out about Kinini. About their unique model, about their coffee, and their incredible leadership. We feel privileged to be part of their growth and proud to be the champion of their coffee in the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927167197244,"sku":"INV03135-2","price":19.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927167164476,"sku":"INV03135-10","price":91.1,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927167131708,"sku":"INV03135-33","price":276.21,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927167098940,"sku":"INV03135-66","price":522.72,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927167066172,"sku":"INV03135-full","price":959.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.95","offer_id":67630069055548,"sku":"INV03135-sample","price":9.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Village-Natural.png?v=1785165815"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-cooperative-lot-7-28-natural","title":"Kinini Village Cooperative, Lot 7-28, Natural","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Kinini\" means, literally, 'this big thing right here'. It is the name of the collaboration of cooperatives seeking to pool their efforts to improve their lots. 85% of the members are women-- we met this group through the IWCA and found the lot from Tumba Village to be something worth sharing. Kinini is also the name of a washing station and cooperative located in Kinini town, which collects from the neighboring villages of Tumba and Mageragere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand how a group can produce 87 point coffee in their first year of production, you have to understand the people behind the coffee. Dreamers. That's what everyone called Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear when they wanted to start a school for children in Eastern Rwanda 10 years ago. Driven by the desire to help the children of the genocide, they made that dream a reality. As they got to know that community they realized that these children needed much more than just education, and consequently, they lobbied the local government and international donors to support the construction of a local pharmacy, micro-finance credit institution, and other services to support the community that supports these children. What these two have accomplished for that community would be more than enough for any of us to hang our hat on and rest on our laurels, but they were not satisfied. Jacquie wanted to do more to help her fellow Rwandans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo she and Malcolm started dreaming again. This time they dream of possibilities in coffee. They wanted to find a way to have generational impact on communities without having to continually fundraise money for aid projects. At this time they didn't know anything about coffee, but they knew that the Rwandan government was supporting a transition towards specialty coffee. Malcolm and Jacquie wanted to see how far they could leverage that goodwill towards helping a community. They spent years soliciting advice from experts across the coffee industry and traveled all over Rwanda to look for a community that was interested in such a venture and was conducive for growing good coffee. After countless hours walking around farms with agronomists and soil-scientists, they settled on an area just an hour north of Kigali. This spot is not only stunning for its views, but its high elevation that dwarfs even the well-known Lake Kivu region. There was only one issue: not a lot of coffee was being grown there. So they dreamt up a solution. What if... they gave farmers coffee to grow? What if... they gave farmers technical support on how to grow good coffee? What if...they gave farmers a washing station to process it? What if...they gave farmers a dry mill to further process it? What if...they set up an export company in Rwanda to sell it, and an import company in the UK to own it even further? What if...10% of the profits went directly to development project investments (in education, health, etc.) What if...they helped organize these farmers so that they could manage themselves and eventually the business without them? What if...  It was a lot of dreaming, that was met with a lot of doors being slammed in their face. Set-backs that would deter the most resilient of us did nothing to dissuade these two from their goal. After years of lobbying the local government, the Development Bank of Rwanda, farmers themselves, and countless other parties, their project was finally green-lit in 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe structure of the project was unprecedented. Kinini Coffee signed a \"lease\" on parcels of land owned by various farmers throughout the area. This lease stipulated that Kinini would provide all these farmers with coffee trees, training, and organization. All the farmers had to do was agree to deliver these cherries to the Kinini Washing Station when they fruited in the future, for which they would be paid. For the most part, the chosen parcels sat on unused land that wasn't being farmed yet. The due-diligence done on this lease took over a year. It was printed in triplicate for every farmer by the lawyers at the local and federal government to make sure farmers weren't being taken advantage of. They had never seen anything like it. They just kept asking, \"Why would you invest so much into farmers that have done nothing for you?\". Their answer, \"Because it's the right thing to do\". As a sign of good-faith, Malcolm put up his own life-insurance policy as collateral to the loan by the Rwandan Development Bank. They started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers, setting up trainings, building their washing station, and organizing farmers. Their learning curve in coffee was meteoric. Whenever they needed an answer to a coffee question, they would ask three specialists instead of one and triangulate their responses before making the most informed decision. A truly detailed-oriented team. The result? In 2017, three years after the trees had been planted, they had their first harvest of any substantive volume. It was a frenzy of activity. Samples were being sent to different Q-graders around Rwanda for evaluation so they could start to identify different areas for separation in the future. First year issues were being hashed out and triaged as needed. Choices were made not just for the sake of a certifying body, or a 3rd party auditor, but because they were in the best interest of the farmers and the coffee. An example of this was the gender equity trainings they were conducting. They did this not because they were asked to by a certifier, but because they thought it was vitally important to value women in the supply chain. Farmer group development continued and logical lot separations started to present themselves, such as the Tumba Village area. They had no idea how their coffee was going to taste, but they poured their heart and soul into it anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result? The care taken at the farm (by farmers incentivized to do so), at the washing station, during cherry collection, and on the drying tables paid off. They had done it! This is the very moment we met them. Malcolm and Jacquie had been so busy building Kinini Coffee that they were just getting around to figuring out how to sell the coffee. We fell in love with both the story and the coffee and snagged their first export to the United States that year. The quality demanded a price that helped to justify the amount of time and energy everyone had put into the venture. Farmers were happy with the new income stream and the price paid as well. The lot selection we chose was from the Tumba Village area, which Crop to Cup was lucky enough to visit the following spring. This is only the beginning of their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's next? It would take an entire book to describe their ambitions, but a quick preview of things to come are...A new cupping lab at the washing station, A new dry mill next to the washing station, A satellite project with a space imaging company to identify soil characteristics for their farmers and help inform what makes the most sense to grow. To be clear, the word is getting out about Kinini. About their unique model, about their coffee, and their incredible leadership. We feel privileged to be part of their growth and proud to be the champion of their coffee in the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927176863804,"sku":"INV03024-2","price":19.92,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927176831036,"sku":"INV03024-10","price":91.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927176798268,"sku":"INV03024-33","price":276.54,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927176765500,"sku":"INV03024-66","price":523.38,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927176732732,"sku":"INV03024-full","price":960.35,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.96","offer_id":67630069481532,"sku":"INV03024-sample","price":9.96,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Village-Cooperative-Lot-728-Natural.png?v=1785165945"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-cooperative-lot-7-21-natural","title":"Kinini Village Cooperative, Lot 7-21, Natural","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Kinini\" means, literally, 'this big thing right here'. It is the name of the collaboration of cooperatives seeking to pool their efforts to improve their lots. 85% of the members are women-- we met this group through the IWCA and found the lot from Tumba Village to be something worth sharing. Kinini is also the name of a washing station and cooperative located in Kinini town, which collects from the neighboring villages of Tumba and Mageragere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand how a group can produce 87 point coffee in their first year of production, you have to understand the people behind the coffee. Dreamers. That's what everyone called Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear when they wanted to start a school for children in Eastern Rwanda 10 years ago. Driven by the desire to help the children of the genocide, they made that dream a reality. As they got to know that community they realized that these children needed much more than just education, and consequently, they lobbied the local government and international donors to support the construction of a local pharmacy, micro-finance credit institution, and other services to support the community that supports these children. What these two have accomplished for that community would be more than enough for any of us to hang our hat on and rest on our laurels, but they were not satisfied. Jacquie wanted to do more to help her fellow Rwandans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo she and Malcolm started dreaming again. This time they dream of possibilities in coffee. They wanted to find a way to have generational impact on communities without having to continually fundraise money for aid projects. At this time they didn't know anything about coffee, but they knew that the Rwandan government was supporting a transition towards specialty coffee. Malcolm and Jacquie wanted to see how far they could leverage that goodwill towards helping a community. They spent years soliciting advice from experts across the coffee industry and traveled all over Rwanda to look for a community that was interested in such a venture and was conducive for growing good coffee. After countless hours walking around farms with agronomists and soil-scientists, they settled on an area just an hour north of Kigali. This spot is not only stunning for its views, but its high elevation that dwarfs even the well-known Lake Kivu region. There was only one issue: not a lot of coffee was being grown there. So they dreamt up a solution. What if... they gave farmers coffee to grow? What if... they gave farmers technical support on how to grow good coffee? What if...they gave farmers a washing station to process it? What if...they gave farmers a dry mill to further process it? What if...they set up an export company in Rwanda to sell it, and an import company in the UK to own it even further? What if...10% of the profits went directly to development project investments (in education, health, etc.) What if...they helped organize these farmers so that they could manage themselves and eventually the business without them? What if...  It was a lot of dreaming, that was met with a lot of doors being slammed in their face. Set-backs that would deter the most resilient of us did nothing to dissuade these two from their goal. After years of lobbying the local government, the Development Bank of Rwanda, farmers themselves, and countless other parties, their project was finally green-lit in 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe structure of the project was unprecedented. Kinini Coffee signed a \"lease\" on parcels of land owned by various farmers throughout the area. This lease stipulated that Kinini would provide all these farmers with coffee trees, training, and organization. All the farmers had to do was agree to deliver these cherries to the Kinini Washing Station when they fruited in the future, for which they would be paid. For the most part, the chosen parcels sat on unused land that wasn't being farmed yet. The due-diligence done on this lease took over a year. It was printed in triplicate for every farmer by the lawyers at the local and federal government to make sure farmers weren't being taken advantage of. They had never seen anything like it. They just kept asking, \"Why would you invest so much into farmers that have done nothing for you?\". Their answer, \"Because it's the right thing to do\". As a sign of good-faith, Malcolm put up his own life-insurance policy as collateral to the loan by the Rwandan Development Bank. They started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers, setting up trainings, building their washing station, and organizing farmers. Their learning curve in coffee was meteoric. Whenever they needed an answer to a coffee question, they would ask three specialists instead of one and triangulate their responses before making the most informed decision. A truly detailed-oriented team. The result? In 2017, three years after the trees had been planted, they had their first harvest of any substantive volume. It was a frenzy of activity. Samples were being sent to different Q-graders around Rwanda for evaluation so they could start to identify different areas for separation in the future. First year issues were being hashed out and triaged as needed. Choices were made not just for the sake of a certifying body, or a 3rd party auditor, but because they were in the best interest of the farmers and the coffee. An example of this was the gender equity trainings they were conducting. They did this not because they were asked to by a certifier, but because they thought it was vitally important to value women in the supply chain. Farmer group development continued and logical lot separations started to present themselves, such as the Tumba Village area. They had no idea how their coffee was going to taste, but they poured their heart and soul into it anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result? The care taken at the farm (by farmers incentivized to do so), at the washing station, during cherry collection, and on the drying tables paid off. They had done it! This is the very moment we met them. Malcolm and Jacquie had been so busy building Kinini Coffee that they were just getting around to figuring out how to sell the coffee. We fell in love with both the story and the coffee and snagged their first export to the United States that year. The quality demanded a price that helped to justify the amount of time and energy everyone had put into the venture. Farmers were happy with the new income stream and the price paid as well. The lot selection we chose was from the Tumba Village area, which Crop to Cup was lucky enough to visit the following spring. This is only the beginning of their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's next? It would take an entire book to describe their ambitions, but a quick preview of things to come are...A new cupping lab at the washing station, A new dry mill next to the washing station, A satellite project with a space imaging company to identify soil characteristics for their farmers and help inform what makes the most sense to grow. To be clear, the word is getting out about Kinini. About their unique model, about their coffee, and their incredible leadership. We feel privileged to be part of their growth and proud to be the champion of their coffee in the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927178076220,"sku":"INV03023-2","price":19.9,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927178043452,"sku":"INV03023-10","price":91.1,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927178010684,"sku":"INV03023-33","price":276.21,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927177977916,"sku":"INV03023-66","price":522.72,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927177945148,"sku":"INV03023-full","price":959.03,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.95","offer_id":67630069514300,"sku":"INV03023-sample","price":9.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Village-Cooperative-Lot-721-Natural.png?v=1785165965"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-washed-lot-5-21","title":"Kinini Village, Washed, Lot 5-21","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Kinini\" means, literally, 'this big thing right here'. It is the name of the collaboration of cooperatives seeking to pool their efforts to improve their lots. 85% of the members are women-- we met this group through the IWCA and found the lot from Tumba Village to be something worth sharing. Kinini is also the name of a washing station and cooperative located in Kinini town, which collects from the neighboring villages of Tumba and Mageragere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand how a group can produce 87 point coffee in their first year of production, you have to understand the people behind the coffee. Dreamers. That's what everyone called Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear when they wanted to start a school for children in Eastern Rwanda 10 years ago. Driven by the desire to help the children of the genocide, they made that dream a reality. As they got to know that community they realized that these children needed much more than just education, and consequently, they lobbied the local government and international donors to support the construction of a local pharmacy, micro-finance credit institution, and other services to support the community that supports these children. What these two have accomplished for that community would be more than enough for any of us to hang our hat on and rest on our laurels, but they were not satisfied. Jacquie wanted to do more to help her fellow Rwandans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo she and Malcolm started dreaming again. This time they dream of possibilities in coffee. They wanted to find a way to have generational impact on communities without having to continually fundraise money for aid projects. At this time they didn't know anything about coffee, but they knew that the Rwandan government was supporting a transition towards specialty coffee. Malcolm and Jacquie wanted to see how far they could leverage that goodwill towards helping a community. They spent years soliciting advice from experts across the coffee industry and traveled all over Rwanda to look for a community that was interested in such a venture and was conducive for growing good coffee. After countless hours walking around farms with agronomists and soil-scientists, they settled on an area just an hour north of Kigali. This spot is not only stunning for its views, but its high elevation that dwarfs even the well-known Lake Kivu region. There was only one issue: not a lot of coffee was being grown there. So they dreamt up a solution. What if... they gave farmers coffee to grow? What if... they gave farmers technical support on how to grow good coffee? What if...they gave farmers a washing station to process it? What if...they gave farmers a dry mill to further process it? What if...they set up an export company in Rwanda to sell it, and an import company in the UK to own it even further? What if...10% of the profits went directly to development project investments (in education, health, etc.) What if...they helped organize these farmers so that they could manage themselves and eventually the business without them? What if...  It was a lot of dreaming, that was met with a lot of doors being slammed in their face. Set-backs that would deter the most resilient of us did nothing to dissuade these two from their goal. After years of lobbying the local government, the Development Bank of Rwanda, farmers themselves, and countless other parties, their project was finally green-lit in 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe structure of the project was unprecedented. Kinini Coffee signed a \"lease\" on parcels of land owned by various farmers throughout the area. This lease stipulated that Kinini would provide all these farmers with coffee trees, training, and organization. All the farmers had to do was agree to deliver these cherries to the Kinini Washing Station when they fruited in the future, for which they would be paid. For the most part, the chosen parcels sat on unused land that wasn't being farmed yet. The due-diligence done on this lease took over a year. It was printed in triplicate for every farmer by the lawyers at the local and federal government to make sure farmers weren't being taken advantage of. They had never seen anything like it. They just kept asking, \"Why would you invest so much into farmers that have done nothing for you?\". Their answer, \"Because it's the right thing to do\". As a sign of good-faith, Malcolm put up his own life-insurance policy as collateral to the loan by the Rwandan Development Bank. They started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers, setting up trainings, building their washing station, and organizing farmers. Their learning curve in coffee was meteoric. Whenever they needed an answer to a coffee question, they would ask three specialists instead of one and triangulate their responses before making the most informed decision. A truly detailed-oriented team. The result? In 2017, three years after the trees had been planted, they had their first harvest of any substantive volume. It was a frenzy of activity. Samples were being sent to different Q-graders around Rwanda for evaluation so they could start to identify different areas for separation in the future. First year issues were being hashed out and triaged as needed. Choices were made not just for the sake of a certifying body, or a 3rd party auditor, but because they were in the best interest of the farmers and the coffee. An example of this was the gender equity trainings they were conducting. They did this not because they were asked to by a certifier, but because they thought it was vitally important to value women in the supply chain. Farmer group development continued and logical lot separations started to present themselves, such as the Tumba Village area. They had no idea how their coffee was going to taste, but they poured their heart and soul into it anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result? The care taken at the farm (by farmers incentivized to do so), at the washing station, during cherry collection, and on the drying tables paid off. They had done it! This is the very moment we met them. Malcolm and Jacquie had been so busy building Kinini Coffee that they were just getting around to figuring out how to sell the coffee. We fell in love with both the story and the coffee and snagged their first export to the United States that year. The quality demanded a price that helped to justify the amount of time and energy everyone had put into the venture. Farmers were happy with the new income stream and the price paid as well. The lot selection we chose was from the Tumba Village area, which Crop to Cup was lucky enough to visit the following spring. This is only the beginning of their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's next? It would take an entire book to describe their ambitions, but a quick preview of things to come are...A new cupping lab at the washing station, A new dry mill next to the washing station, A satellite project with a space imaging company to identify soil characteristics for their farmers and help inform what makes the most sense to grow. To be clear, the word is getting out about Kinini. About their unique model, about their coffee, and their incredible leadership. We feel privileged to be part of their growth and proud to be the champion of their coffee in the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927187021884,"sku":"INV02843-2","price":19.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927186989116,"sku":"INV02843-10","price":87.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927186956348,"sku":"INV02843-33","price":264.66,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927186923580,"sku":"INV02843-66","price":499.62,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927186890812,"sku":"INV02843-full","price":912.73,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.60","offer_id":67630070300732,"sku":"INV02843-sample","price":9.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/Kinini-Village-Washed-Lot-5-21.png?v=1785166101"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-natural-2022-2","title":"Kinini Village Natural 2022","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Kinini\" means, literally, 'this big thing right here'. It is the name of the collaboration of cooperatives seeking to pool their efforts to improve their lots. 85% of the members are women-- we met this group through the IWCA and found the lot from Tumba Village to be something worth sharing. Kinini is also the name of a washing station and cooperative located in Kinini town, which collects from the neighboring villages of Tumba and Mageragere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand how a group can produce 87 point coffee in their first year of production, you have to understand the people behind the coffee. Dreamers. That's what everyone called Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear when they wanted to start a school for children in Eastern Rwanda 10 years ago. Driven by the desire to help the children of the genocide, they made that dream a reality. As they got to know that community they realized that these children needed much more than just education, and consequently, they lobbied the local government and international donors to support the construction of a local pharmacy, micro-finance credit institution, and other services to support the community that supports these children. What these two have accomplished for that community would be more than enough for any of us to hang our hat on and rest on our laurels, but they were not satisfied. Jacquie wanted to do more to help her fellow Rwandans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo she and Malcolm started dreaming again. This time they dream of possibilities in coffee. They wanted to find a way to have generational impact on communities without having to continually fundraise money for aid projects. At this time they didn't know anything about coffee, but they knew that the Rwandan government was supporting a transition towards specialty coffee. Malcolm and Jacquie wanted to see how far they could leverage that goodwill towards helping a community. They spent years soliciting advice from experts across the coffee industry and traveled all over Rwanda to look for a community that was interested in such a venture and was conducive for growing good coffee. After countless hours walking around farms with agronomists and soil-scientists, they settled on an area just an hour north of Kigali. This spot is not only stunning for its views, but its high elevation that dwarfs even the well-known Lake Kivu region. There was only one issue: not a lot of coffee was being grown there. So they dreamt up a solution. What if... they gave farmers coffee to grow? What if... they gave farmers technical support on how to grow good coffee? What if...they gave farmers a washing station to process it? What if...they gave farmers a dry mill to further process it? What if...they set up an export company in Rwanda to sell it, and an import company in the UK to own it even further? What if...10% of the profits went directly to development project investments (in education, health, etc.) What if...they helped organize these farmers so that they could manage themselves and eventually the business without them? What if...  It was a lot of dreaming, that was met with a lot of doors being slammed in their face. Set-backs that would deter the most resilient of us did nothing to dissuade these two from their goal. After years of lobbying the local government, the Development Bank of Rwanda, farmers themselves, and countless other parties, their project was finally green-lit in 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe structure of the project was unprecedented. Kinini Coffee signed a \"lease\" on parcels of land owned by various farmers throughout the area. This lease stipulated that Kinini would provide all these farmers with coffee trees, training, and organization. All the farmers had to do was agree to deliver these cherries to the Kinini Washing Station when they fruited in the future, for which they would be paid. For the most part, the chosen parcels sat on unused land that wasn't being farmed yet. The due-diligence done on this lease took over a year. It was printed in triplicate for every farmer by the lawyers at the local and federal government to make sure farmers weren't being taken advantage of. They had never seen anything like it. They just kept asking, \"Why would you invest so much into farmers that have done nothing for you?\". Their answer, \"Because it's the right thing to do\". As a sign of good-faith, Malcolm put up his own life-insurance policy as collateral to the loan by the Rwandan Development Bank. They started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers, setting up trainings, building their washing station, and organizing farmers. Their learning curve in coffee was meteoric. Whenever they needed an answer to a coffee question, they would ask three specialists instead of one and triangulate their responses before making the most informed decision. A truly detailed-oriented team. The result? In 2017, three years after the trees had been planted, they had their first harvest of any substantive volume. It was a frenzy of activity. Samples were being sent to different Q-graders around Rwanda for evaluation so they could start to identify different areas for separation in the future. First year issues were being hashed out and triaged as needed. Choices were made not just for the sake of a certifying body, or a 3rd party auditor, but because they were in the best interest of the farmers and the coffee. An example of this was the gender equity trainings they were conducting. They did this not because they were asked to by a certifier, but because they thought it was vitally important to value women in the supply chain. Farmer group development continued and logical lot separations started to present themselves, such as the Tumba Village area. They had no idea how their coffee was going to taste, but they poured their heart and soul into it anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result? The care taken at the farm (by farmers incentivized to do so), at the washing station, during cherry collection, and on the drying tables paid off. They had done it! This is the very moment we met them. Malcolm and Jacquie had been so busy building Kinini Coffee that they were just getting around to figuring out how to sell the coffee. We fell in love with both the story and the coffee and snagged their first export to the United States that year. The quality demanded a price that helped to justify the amount of time and energy everyone had put into the venture. Farmers were happy with the new income stream and the price paid as well. The lot selection we chose was from the Tumba Village area, which Crop to Cup was lucky enough to visit the following spring. This is only the beginning of their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's next? It would take an entire book to describe their ambitions, but a quick preview of things to come are...A new cupping lab at the washing station, A new dry mill next to the washing station, A satellite project with a space imaging company to identify soil characteristics for their farmers and help inform what makes the most sense to grow. To be clear, the word is getting out about Kinini. About their unique model, about their coffee, and their incredible leadership. We feel privileged to be part of their growth and proud to be the champion of their coffee in the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927234797628,"sku":"INV02257-2","price":19.12,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927234764860,"sku":"INV02257-10","price":87.2,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927234732092,"sku":"INV02257-33","price":263.34,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927234699324,"sku":"INV02257-66","price":496.98,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927234666556,"sku":"INV02257-full","price":907.44,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.56","offer_id":67630072266812,"sku":"INV02257-sample","price":9.56,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/KININI-VILLAGE-NATURAL-2022.png?v=1785166984"},{"product_id":"dukorere-kawa-bukure-natural-2022-2","title":"Dukorere Kawa Bukure Natural 2022","description":"\u003cp\u003ePassionately caring about the well-being of others and a meticulous attention to detail...Those two traits sum up Agnes Mukamushinja, Felix Hitayezu and the Nova Coffee team. You have to pay attention to the small print when your experience is in running a pharmacy. Pharmacist Felix Hitayezu and his wife Agnes Mukamushinja (nurse) run a pharmacy called \"Pharmacie Nova'' in Kigali, and only recently decided to dip their toes into a coffee venture 5 years ago, which they aptly named \"Nova Coffee\". The result? A coffee program run with as much professionalism as a pharmacy. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBefore they started they came up with an official vision and mission statement. The Nova Official vision reads, \"At Nova Coffee, we envision to drive community socioeconomic welfare through the enhancement of improved coffee farming practices.\" The Nova Official mission statement reads: \"Being a women-centered washing station, Nova Coffee is committed to developing the neighboring community into specialized coffee farmers that produce the highest quality coffee as well as to enhancing the social cohesion in order to create more jobs and eradicate poverty\".\u003cbr\u003e\nTruly socially motivated dreamers-- our kind of people! Why coffee though? During the genocide Agnes saw most of the coffee trees get destroyed in her village, trees that her father spent his entire 50 year career supporting, as a coffee agronomist and mobilizer. The remaining trees were of low quality and all coffee was being processed as semi-washed. In Agnes's words, \"We bought a decrepit old washing station to fix up and try and lift up the village\". That village, Bukure, is a beautiful few hour drive north from Kigali, through valleys of rice fields and banana trees. Agnes quickly signed up for every possible resource that the Rwandan government was providing for the coffee sector and set her office up at NAEB (National Agricultural Development Export Board) to make sure she didn't miss any opportunity. She joined Rwanda's IWCA chapter, and eagerly partook in any free trainings that were made available. She quickly targeted the coveted value-added product market, and worked with the non-profit TWIN to launch a domestic roasted coffee brand called \"Le Cafe de Mamans\". That coffee is grown by 263 women of the local Berwa Cooperative, then roasted in Kigali and sold around Rwanda's tourist market. It's still in the early stages, but the women have been energized by the project and realize that Agnes means business! Due to the rezoning law passed by the Rwandan government in 2017, now only 3 cooperatives deliver their coffee cherries to Nova to get processed. They are the Jyambere Muhinzi Wakawa Cooperative, the Dukorere Kawa Cooperative, and the aforementioned Berwa Cooperative. This special natural processed lot was grown by farmers who live just adjacent to the washing station in the Bukure sector. Some of these farmers are members of the Dukorere Kawa Cooperative but chose to have these cherries be sold to Nova outside of the cooperative. This was an experimental lot in its first year and they hit it out of the park. Like the saying goes, it didn't just happen. Part of being a good manager is surrounding yourself with great talent, and Agnes has brought top notch people into the Nova Team in the past few years. Celeste is their quality control manager with over 20 years of experience, and a big part of the success of this lot. It's rare to see him without his notebook, phone, and moisture reader. Thacien is their full-time, year round agronomist for farmers with a goal of bringing production up to 10 kilos per tree. Theresa manages their daily operations, farmer organization, and gender equity trainings. This list goes on and on. The cherries dry over the course of 18 days for roughly 9 hours a day, while being carefully watched over by Celeste. Suffice it to say, we are thrilled to introduce the US market to this special group and their coffee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927235649596,"sku":"INV02256-2","price":18.82,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927235616828,"sku":"INV02256-10","price":85.7,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927235584060,"sku":"INV02256-33","price":258.39,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927235551292,"sku":"INV02256-66","price":487.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927235518524,"sku":"INV02256-full","price":887.6,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.41","offer_id":67630072299580,"sku":"INV02256-sample","price":9.41,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/DUKORERE-KAWA-BUKURE-NATURAL-2022.png?v=1785167004"},{"product_id":"kinini-village-washed-2022-2","title":"Kinini Village Washed 2022","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"Kinini\" means, literally, 'this big thing right here'. It is the name of the collaboration of cooperatives seeking to pool their efforts to improve their lots. 85% of the members are women-- we met this group through the IWCA and found the lot from Tumba Village to be something worth sharing. Kinini is also the name of a washing station and cooperative located in Kinini town, which collects from the neighboring villages of Tumba and Mageragere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTo understand how a group can produce 87 point coffee in their first year of production, you have to understand the people behind the coffee. Dreamers. That's what everyone called Jacquie Turner and Malcolm Clear when they wanted to start a school for children in Eastern Rwanda 10 years ago. Driven by the desire to help the children of the genocide, they made that dream a reality. As they got to know that community they realized that these children needed much more than just education, and consequently, they lobbied the local government and international donors to support the construction of a local pharmacy, micro-finance credit institution, and other services to support the community that supports these children. What these two have accomplished for that community would be more than enough for any of us to hang our hat on and rest on our laurels, but they were not satisfied. Jacquie wanted to do more to help her fellow Rwandans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo she and Malcolm started dreaming again. This time they dream of possibilities in coffee. They wanted to find a way to have generational impact on communities without having to continually fundraise money for aid projects. At this time they didn't know anything about coffee, but they knew that the Rwandan government was supporting a transition towards specialty coffee. Malcolm and Jacquie wanted to see how far they could leverage that goodwill towards helping a community. They spent years soliciting advice from experts across the coffee industry and traveled all over Rwanda to look for a community that was interested in such a venture and was conducive for growing good coffee. After countless hours walking around farms with agronomists and soil-scientists, they settled on an area just an hour north of Kigali. This spot is not only stunning for its views, but its high elevation that dwarfs even the well-known Lake Kivu region. There was only one issue: not a lot of coffee was being grown there. So they dreamt up a solution. What if... they gave farmers coffee to grow? What if... they gave farmers technical support on how to grow good coffee? What if...they gave farmers a washing station to process it? What if...they gave farmers a dry mill to further process it? What if...they set up an export company in Rwanda to sell it, and an import company in the UK to own it even further? What if...10% of the profits went directly to development project investments (in education, health, etc.) What if...they helped organize these farmers so that they could manage themselves and eventually the business without them? What if...  It was a lot of dreaming, that was met with a lot of doors being slammed in their face. Set-backs that would deter the most resilient of us did nothing to dissuade these two from their goal. After years of lobbying the local government, the Development Bank of Rwanda, farmers themselves, and countless other parties, their project was finally green-lit in 2014.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe structure of the project was unprecedented. Kinini Coffee signed a \"lease\" on parcels of land owned by various farmers throughout the area. This lease stipulated that Kinini would provide all these farmers with coffee trees, training, and organization. All the farmers had to do was agree to deliver these cherries to the Kinini Washing Station when they fruited in the future, for which they would be paid. For the most part, the chosen parcels sat on unused land that wasn't being farmed yet. The due-diligence done on this lease took over a year. It was printed in triplicate for every farmer by the lawyers at the local and federal government to make sure farmers weren't being taken advantage of. They had never seen anything like it. They just kept asking, \"Why would you invest so much into farmers that have done nothing for you?\". Their answer, \"Because it's the right thing to do\". As a sign of good-faith, Malcolm put up his own life-insurance policy as collateral to the loan by the Rwandan Development Bank. They started distributing coffee seedlings to farmers, setting up trainings, building their washing station, and organizing farmers. Their learning curve in coffee was meteoric. Whenever they needed an answer to a coffee question, they would ask three specialists instead of one and triangulate their responses before making the most informed decision. A truly detailed-oriented team. The result? In 2017, three years after the trees had been planted, they had their first harvest of any substantive volume. It was a frenzy of activity. Samples were being sent to different Q-graders around Rwanda for evaluation so they could start to identify different areas for separation in the future. First year issues were being hashed out and triaged as needed. Choices were made not just for the sake of a certifying body, or a 3rd party auditor, but because they were in the best interest of the farmers and the coffee. An example of this was the gender equity trainings they were conducting. They did this not because they were asked to by a certifier, but because they thought it was vitally important to value women in the supply chain. Farmer group development continued and logical lot separations started to present themselves, such as the Tumba Village area. They had no idea how their coffee was going to taste, but they poured their heart and soul into it anyway.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe result? The care taken at the farm (by farmers incentivized to do so), at the washing station, during cherry collection, and on the drying tables paid off. They had done it! This is the very moment we met them. Malcolm and Jacquie had been so busy building Kinini Coffee that they were just getting around to figuring out how to sell the coffee. We fell in love with both the story and the coffee and snagged their first export to the United States that year. The quality demanded a price that helped to justify the amount of time and energy everyone had put into the venture. Farmers were happy with the new income stream and the price paid as well. The lot selection we chose was from the Tumba Village area, which Crop to Cup was lucky enough to visit the following spring. This is only the beginning of their story.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat's next? It would take an entire book to describe their ambitions, but a quick preview of things to come are...A new cupping lab at the washing station, A new dry mill next to the washing station, A satellite project with a space imaging company to identify soil characteristics for their farmers and help inform what makes the most sense to grow. To be clear, the word is getting out about Kinini. About their unique model, about their coffee, and their incredible leadership. We feel privileged to be part of their growth and proud to be the champion of their coffee in the U.S.\u003c\/p\u003e\n","brand":"Showroom Coffee","offers":[{"title":"2 lb","offer_id":45927238402108,"sku":"INV02189-2","price":18.62,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"10 lb","offer_id":45927238369340,"sku":"INV02189-10","price":84.7,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"33 lb","offer_id":45927238336572,"sku":"INV02189-33","price":255.09,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"66 lb","offer_id":45927238303804,"sku":"INV02189-66","price":480.48,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"Full Bag","offer_id":45927238271036,"sku":"INV02189-full","price":874.37,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"200g Sample $9.31","offer_id":67630072397884,"sku":"INV02189-sample","price":9.31,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0719\/5253\/1516\/files\/KININI-VILLAGE-WASHED-2022.png?v=1785167064"}],"url":"https:\/\/showroomcoffee.com\/collections\/rwanda.oembed","provider":"Showroom Coffee","version":"1.0","type":"link"}