Lake Kivu Freshly Roasted Coffee

Smooth | Berry | Cocoa | Brown Sugar

Light Roast | DR Congo | Organic | Fair Trade | Women-Producers

$18.00
Shipping calculated at checkout.

Smooth | Berry | Cocoa | Brown Sugar

DR Congo | Organic | Fair Trade | Women-Producers

Sometimes light roast coffee gets a bad rep. "Blech, it's too acidic." "Gross, it's so sour." 
Lake Kivu is here to prove the haters wrong. 

We roast this on the lighter side to showcase the brightness and bring out the sweet and smooth side. Why dull a sparkle when it's meant to shine? And Lake Kivu sure does shine. It's pleasantly sweet with hints of cocoa and berry, while maintaining an approachable balance of flavors and finish. It's one of our favorites, and maybe one of yours too? 

Lake Kivu is an Organic and Fair Trade Certified coffee grown by over 5300 women farm owners/farm managers. 

Kivu is an area in DRC nearly destroyed by the Congo civil war and the Rwanda Genocide. The resulting economic collapse led many coffee farmers to smuggle their coffee to nearby Rwanda to get food and other necessary supplies due to low coffee prices in the Congo. These specific offerings come from a group of 51 pygmy women who live and farm in the villages of Mishebere and Ruhunde in the Kahele territory. Historically, Pygmy people have faced terrible discrimination and disenfranchisement, including being forced into slavery and/or low-paying work. SOPACDI has started this project to source and keep separate coffee from this group of growers in order to provide them a better income from specialty coffee as well as more financial independence and autonomy. The producers each own an average of 0.5 hectares and deliver coffee in cherry form to the washing station.

SOPACDI is leading the way in reviving the DRC’s specialty coffee industry. They were the first cooperative in the country to be awarded the top national coffee grade, “Kivu 2”, since 1967. They were also the first coffee cooperative in the DRC to be Fairtrade and organic certified. Their goal is to improve the lives of their members through coffee cultivation. SOPACDI’s guiding principles are to combine peace and reconciliation with producing the finest coffee quality possible.