Gombe, Uganda | Washed

As part of a series to highlight the work done by the Coffee Gardens this lot is dedicated to Community Development Projects. This arm of governance is to help lobby Government on behalf of farmers, seek grants from Donors and also to allocate some of the funds from their sales to this. So far they have managed to build 3 toilet blocks at schools benfitting 2400 students, built 600m of a community road and also fixed 1km of water piping with 4 communal taps benefitting 200 households (Please ask for QR code for more information).

The Coffee Gardens was established in 2017 with the goal of producing incredible specialty coffee in an ethical way, offering a transparent and direct link between coffee farmers and coffee consumers. At the start of the 2022 season they dismantled their old washing station and rebuilt it a new site to be bale to expand their capacity and produce more coffee.

The Coffee Gardens Project has been established with many purposes, such as to improve farmers income and livelihoods, create and provide rural employment, promote gender equality, increase transparency and traceability throughout the supply chain, promote and work on environmental protection in the area and provide farmer training in Good Agricultural Practises (GAP).

The Coffee Gardens also incentivises and reward farmers through a number of different monetary and non-monetary ways. These include post-season bonuses, additional income-generating and employment opportunities, tree distribution and a range of all-year-round training programs. The Coffee Gardens is transparent with their partner farmers about buying policy and prices, providing each registered farmer with a contract and a buying-record book, communicating any price changes via SMS to registered farmers, and providing receipts for every transaction.

The coffee in this micro-lot is produced by the farmers on the mountain above The Coffee Gardens’ washing station. The farmers bring the coffee cherries down to the processing station themselves, earning extra income.

This lot is made up of 227 farmers with 18% of them Women farmers. The farmers from this lot received 48% of the FOB price. This lot was harvested in December 2022 and January 2023.

1) Coffee is delivered to the station and sorted by 4 employees dedicated to this job

2) Coffee is pulped and then soaked in cold mountain water

3) The coffee is then submerged in tanks for a 40hr signature fermentation

4) The coffee is then washed and any floaters removed

5) The coffee is then transferred for skin drying on raised beds in the shade for 2-3 days

6) Then the coffee is taken to the solar drier and will continue to dry for 10 days until it reaches between 15-25% depending on the time of the season and local weather.

7) The coffee is then transported down the hill to their drying yard in Mbale where it it dried for another 10 days down to below 11%.

8) The coffee is then left to rest before being prepared for milling and shipping