Uganda Bukonzo Dream
Region: Rwenzori Mountains
Altitude: 1,800 - 2,000 m.a.s.l.
Variety: SL14 & SL28
Processing: natural
Tasting Notes: Balanced vibrant fruitiness with sweet cooked strawberry and juicy purple grape along with a soft, full mouthfeel and lingering aftertaste.
This is the second year Steampunk has bought Bukonzo Dream, which is named after the smallholder farmers of the Bukonzo tribe who grow it. The first time around we bought eight sacks and customers loved the coffee so much we bought another four on top of that. It was chosen as the monthly coffee for Lighter Side of Life, a fun listserv for coffee geeks and it featured as our Christmas Coffee in 2019. This year’s lot is one of the first to be processed at a new washing station and dry mill built by the exporter, Agri Evolve, and it showcases how improving post harvest quality control improves the final cup. This coffee will be the main espresso at Steampunk cafe as well as the Explorer Espresso for our wholesale customers.
The people of the Bukonzo tribe have been growing coffee for generations. They farm small plots of less than 3 acres on average in the Rwenzori Mountains. After picking the ripe cherries they sell them on to Agri Evolve, a “profit for purpose” exporter, at a centralised buying station. Agri Evolve then processes the coffee which, in this case, means the cherries were dried on raised beds inside polytunnels for 22 days before being dry milled to remove the husk and parchment layer. Agri Evolve is the Ugandan exporting partner for Omwani Coffee, the importer who brings us many of our East African coffees including recent ones from Burundi and Rwanda.
Over the last five years or so Uganda has become a better known origin in the specialty coffee world. According to the Uganda Coffee Development Authority the average price paid per kilo for Arabica grown in the Rwenzori Mountains has more than doubled since 2016. According to World Coffee Research (WCR), Uganda aims to quadruple their coffee production in the coming years, focusing on increasing not just the quantity of bags produced but also their quality in order to boost demand. WCR names Uganda as one of its most important focus countries. They’re supporting the country’s goal of modernising their coffee breeding program, helping farmers access more hardy seed stock and facilitating further coffee research.
For more about this coffee and the people who brought it to us, check out our recent blog post.
A note about packaging
Our coffee comes packaged in beautiful and hard wearing tins. It is important to keep those beans away from air and light (see our blog post about coffee storage) and we think tins are the very best way of keeping those guys fresh.
Tins can of course be easily recycled (with other metals) but the very best and most environmentally conscious thing to do with them is to refill them. Find out how to refill or dispose of your Steampunk packaging HERE.