Bean Origins

Like most African coffee-producing countries, except Ethiopia, Rwanda’s coffee cultivation was introduced by European colonial powers to supply the growing market in Europe. In the 1930s, Belgian colonials mandated the planting of high-yield, low-cost coffee varieties with little focus on quality. The colonial government enforced strict export mandates and high taxes on growers, effectively binding them to the industry.

By the 1990s, coffee had become Rwanda’s staple agricultural export despite low market prices. However, the 1994 genocide, which claimed nearly 1 million lives, devastated the coffee industry and stalled development for nearly a decade. In the early 2000s, the Rwandan government initiated programs to use specialty coffee for economic recovery. Today, Rwanda, despite contributing less than 0.2 percent of the global coffee supply, is recognized for its high-quality coffee and its remarkable recovery and development as a specialty coffee origin.