Masha | Burundi | Espresso

TL;DR: a true juice bomb! This is a coffee that helps support literally thousands of farmers, and is so delicious it will have you grinning from ear to ear all day long.

 

Masha washing station in Kayanza Burundi accepts coffee from over 3200 local farmers. Each producer has only 297 trees on average on roughly .11 hectares of land. These small-holder farmers are reliant upon coffee for their livelihood.

Harvest here is typically April through June, but coffee's have a long journey to export from this landlocked country.

From our import partner Cafe Imports:

Masha coffee washing station shares its name with the sub-hill upon which it stands and is actually more famous for its cattle than its coffee (the sub-hill that is).

The name Masha is derived from the Kirundi word “amasho” meaning “herds of cattle”. The sub-hill has been a cross road for many herds in the region and many of the local herders even have a unique greeting for each other, used only in these parts which is appropriate considering that 70% of them own cows.

They will say “gira amasho” towards one another meaning owner of cows and the abundance of cattle was even a reason for many Kings fighting over the territory in order to claim ownership over the vast herds of livestock.

Apart from cows and coffee, the hill on which the station is found, Gihororo, is named after the imihororo trees from which the locals weave traditional clothing making this region truly abundant in precious resources to its people.

The station did experience its fair share of difficulties, especially when the country was in a period of turmoil. In 1997, the storage facility and main house at the station was burnt down by rebels during the political conflict in Burundi.


We’ve roasted this coffee with our usual vigour and intensity, but kept a lighter touch given the honey style processing. We aimed to keep things bright, fun and juicy, and let the coffee do all the talking.

We start with the same recipe for all of our espresso coffees:
 

• 20g dose
• 45g yield
• 30 seconds

 

From here we will tweak things to get the flavours to highlight things we like. Use this as your starting point and go wild!

 

Note: some domestic espresso machines can’t use a 20g dose. Please always follow your manufacturers instructions to avoid damaging your equipment.