Fair Trade Rwanda Dukunde Kawa

June is my favorite month of the year.  It’s my birthday month, it contains the longest day of the year, it’s usually warm but not too hot (hello weather–work with me here!), and it’s the start of the summer holiday and the summer season: full of promise.  Yesterday was Jack’s birthday, and I can’t believe he’s eleven this year: that’s more than two hands.  Each new year brings new challenges and new delights: I revel in his responsibility and independence at this age.  He’s a great helper.

With his balloons and his sign on his birthday

There is one more week to the school year, and the baseball season is also drawing to a close. Our garden grows by the day. On Sunday we’ll have a party for Jack–a small gathering of boys in the pool–and by the time next Friday rolls around it will officially be summer break. A huge thank you to all the teachers out there who have worked with our kids all year. We appreciate you!

This week we have a new harvest of a coffee we’ve carried before. This is our Fair Trade Rwandan, from the Dukunde Kawa Musasa cooperative. This coop is over 80% women, and they are working together to improve their living and farming conditions. In 2012 they won a SCAA sustainability award for their work in promoting ecologically viable farming, with an emphasis on “reforestation, topsoil conservation, and watershed conservation” (see here).

You can read more about the Musasa mill and the work they are doing here, and they have a Fair Trade profile page here. These bourbon beans, an arabica cultivar, are wet processed and dried in the sun. There are some great photos of the Dukunde Kawa cooperative on the RootCapital page here. Besides all these socially responsible characteristics however, this is darn good coffee. They have consistently placed in the annual Cup of Excellence auction.

We roasted this light, and you’ll taste the quality immediately. It tastes of stone fruit, or dried fruit, and finishes with light chocolate flavor. It has a great floral aroma that makes you want to stick your nose in your cup. You can try a cup on us with the code June sun* this week (which is a pun for me, since I had a son in June). Enjoy your warm weekend, if you’re local, and drink good coffee. Cheers.
–Holly Fike

*Code good for one free 12 ounce cup of Fair Trade Rwanda Dukunde Kawa. Code expires on 6.9.16. Limit one free cup per customer please. Valid only at Carolines Coffee Roasters, 128 S. Auburn Street, Grass Valley, CA.