Kayanza is a province in the northwest of Burundi known for its tea and coffee production. Farms associated with Kazoza N’Ikawa are small, generally having less than 1 hectare of land with just a few hundred coffee trees. Farms here, and in most of Burundi, have very little shade—mainly eucalyptus—and are intercropped with fruits, vegetables, and potatoes.
In 2009, we met the cooperative’s president Germaine Simbayobewe on our very first sourcing trip to Burundi. We were immediately struck by his passion for coffee. A few years later, we met Germaine again—this time at Kazoza—and saw his drive and seriousness manifest again in this new cooperative. The coffee from Mpemba is some of the best-picked and best-sorted coffee we have seen in Burundi, so we were not surprised in 2013 when Mpemba took fourth place in the Cup of Excellence. This is our tenth year purchasing coffee from Kazoza N’Ikawa, along with help from the cooperative union, COCOCA, of which this cooperative is a member.
