Background info: 

We decided to bring in not just the washed lot from Shyira but their natural lot this time and it's a stellar selection. As you know our final call on what we source is always based on a blind cupping through various lots and this one was the first pick amongst our team. Shyira washing station was built in 2017 collecting and processing cherries of neighbouring farmers. It is also known as one of the highest-located washing stations in Rwanda.

All cherries are hand-sorted before a pre-pulp float, underripe or damaged cherry is removed, along with any foreign objects. Once the cherries are sorted and cleaned, it's ready to be dried. The cherries are laid out evenly across raised beds, providing consistent airflow, and height, to prevent moisture coming into contact with the cherry.

The cherries are dried for 30 days, turned constantly when the sun is high, and covered during the night. Once the cherry has dried, the now dried outer fruit is removed, and the coffee beans are ready to be organized for packing.

This coffee was quite interesting on the first sip where we all experienced this effervescent acidity reminiscent of pink sherbert, with a clean grape sweetness. The espresso just intensified a lot of citrus notes we picked up a little orange marmalade but still this pink sherbert was prevalent. The milk option was quite light, with subtle notes of cream cake; think of fresh cream cake. fluffy and delicate, if you needed a sweeter cup we would recommend going shorter on the milk such as a cortado.