Gaharo Heirloom Bourbon

Highlights

“Long Miles Coffee Project was started by Ben and Kristy Carlson, who moved to Burundi in 2011 with the goal of connecting coffee growers directly to roasters and helping producers receive premiums that reflect the quality of what they grow. Seeing quickly that modern washing infrastructure was the missing link between farming communities and specialty-level production, they built the Bukeye Station in Gaharo as their first facility. Long Miles has since expanded to a network of over 6,000 producers, processing staff, and educators across Burundi, raising quality scores across the board and making meaningful impact on the livelihoods of the communities they work with. Cherries are hand-picked at peak ripeness, then floated and hand-sorted on arrival to remove defects before being de-pulped on the day of harvest. The parchment undergoes a dry fermentation for 12 hours, is rinsed in fresh water and density graded, then submerged for a second soak of four to six hours. It is then moved to covered pre-drying tables for up to 48 hours, where it is hand-sorted again for visual defects and under or over-ripe parchment, before being transferred to traditional African raised beds where it dries for 16 to 20 days to a target moisture content of 10.5%.”