027 - Stanislas Kayitera
027 - Stanislas Kayitera
027 - Stanislas Kayitera
027 - Stanislas Kayitera

027 - Stanislas Kayitera

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We anticipate this coffee will be roasted for 2026 season reservation holders the week of June 2, 2026. If any additional coffee remains it will be made available to the public the following weekend.

The sixth coffee of our 2026 season comes to us from Stanislas Kayitera, a smallholder who has historically contributed to larger collections from hundreds of producers at Baho's Akagera site in Rwanda. This lot demonstrates how large-scale and community factories can be leveraged to create value for individual smallholders through intentional lot separation from cherry collection through to processing and milling, presenting in the cup with bright notes of white grapefruit, lime, green melon, and orange with brown sugar sweetness.

From Christopher: "I'm enthusiastic about supporting young importing companies when I can, particularly when they've committed to marketing coffee from a particular producer or supply chain. This interest—coupled with my love for coffee from Rwanda—led me to begin buying from Ben Bowdoin and his company, Sundog Trading, in 2020.

"In the 1970s and 1980s, coffee played a central role in the economy of Rwanda and provided a living for hundreds of thousands of smallholder coffee farmers and their families. The industry collapsed, however, following the implosion of the International Coffee Agreement, which devastated prices, and the genocide that followed in the aftermath. Following the end of the genocide, coffee production took a central role in the economic and cultural reconstruction of Rwanda.

"One of the genocide's survivors, Emmanuel Rusatira, would go on to first manage washing stations for other exporters and then eventually found his own export company and washing stations—establishing his company with a mission of celebrating his joie de vivre and the perseverance of the Rwandan while promoting meaningful economic opportunity for his community.

"In April of last year, I chatted with Ben and Emmanuel at SCA Expo in Houston about what our collaboration would look like for the coming year. For Aviary's 2025 season, we'd explored honey processing at one of Baho's stations, and I wanted to continue refining the cup and devised a number of processing protocols for 2026. When the pre-ship samples arrived in September, I was ecstatic with the resulting cups and asked Ben to proceed to shipment.

"But when you work across continents and timezones and months as we do in coffee, things don't always go according to plan. The coffee that eventually became AVIARY#027 wasn't the coffee I had in mind for this release—but nonetheless, it's one I'm thrilled to present.

"In many contexts in coffee—particularly in East Africa—scale and volume are prioritized first, as it's easier and more economical to mill, sell and ship larger lots versus microlots. Thus, it's standard practice for microlots to be deprioritized; even if it's not my preference, it's not usually an issue in compressed harvest cycles and when coffee can be stored and stabilized in GrainPro or other protective barriers to prevent a coffee's humidity from rising after primary postharvest activities were completed.

"But the conflict between Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo made the transportation of goods into the country difficult. A shortage of GrainPro bags meant that the coffee sat unprotected awaiting the rest of the harvest to complete prior to milling; as its moisture crept up, so too did the risk of quality degradation prior to export. We worked to recover, but at every turn were met with interference: there were no vacuum bags available, and the cost of air shipping escalated as Russia's invasion of Ukraine dragged on, raising the risk profile further and further still.

"After a month of effort, we had to abandon our plan and pivot: instead of pulling my volume from Sundog and Baho—both long-term partners and collaborators of mine—we looked to replace the lot with another.

"Back in 2020 or 2021, I bought coffee through Sundog from Baho for the first time, from Emmanuel's station at Akagera—just a year after Baho took over the site from the financially struggling Kobakanya Cooperative. In the years that followed, coffees coming from the 515 farmers growing coffee on that hill—including Kobakanya, still in partnership with Baho—consistently cupped above the other stations, even those with higher elevations or apparently more attention. 

"One of the smallholders who contributed to those collections was Stanislas—a founding member of the Kobakanya Cooperative. A coffee farmer for more than 40 years—beginning before the genocide against the Tutsis—Stanislas grew on 5 hectares, an area roughly 20 times larger than the national average and large enough to produce coffee that could justify its own separation.

"During my work with Crop to Cup in Ethiopia, I advocated for a strategy of using community and cooperative washing station infrastructure—large-scale and designed for volumetric production—to benefit individual smallholders. By isolating their collections, processing them separately and maintaining their integrity through export, we could deliver greater value for those producers while benefitting the collective.

"Emmanuel agrees and wants to highlight the work of model farmers in the communities in which his business operates. In his words: 'These are farmers that do coffee farming as a business and they really show full commitment to their work. They serve as model in good agricultural practices, soil management, erosion control, environmental conservation practices as well as giving jobs to many other small farmers in need especially during harvest…The reason why Baho coffee selected to process and market their production separately from others is because we wanted to motivate them. Selling coffee in their names makes them proud and increases their energy and commitment. Baho will market, promote their coffee and pay them better prices that is higher than any other farm in the region/country.

"So when the coffee we produced together failed—and when a lot from Stanislas showed up on my table using a strategy I've promoted and coming from a hill whose coffee I've long cherished—I saw an ideal candidate for replacement.

"Stanislas' coffee is an exemplar of the style of coffee that Baho and its contributing farmers excel at producing but with laser-refined precision, presenting in the cup with bright, tropical notes of lime, grapefruit, green melon and orange with a brown sugar sweetness and black tea florality."

This coffee will be roasted the week of June 2, 2026.

TASTING NOTES: White grapefruit, lime, green melon and orange
ROAST: Light, to accentuate the citric acidity of this coffee and present its fruited character as sweet and juicy
ACIDITY: Bright and citric acidity of lime/grapefruit
FUNK: This is a clean, washed coffee with bright, citrus-like sweetness and acidity and no perceptible pulpiness or funk.
FOR FANS OF: Bright, clean washed coffees; year-over-year relationships; individual smallholder separations; stories of global supply chain woes

FARMGATE PRICE: 750 rwf/kg + 150 rwf/kg second payment
FOB PRICE: $4.41 per lb
LANDED PRICE: $7.05 per lb

In June 2023, the National Agricultural Export Development of Rwanda, the government body which oversees and regulates coffee production and export nationally, suspended the zoning policy that had been in effect since 2016. Under this policy, washing stations could only buy cherry that originated from within their designated zone. The purpose of this was to reduce overall competition for cherry, enabling smaller exporters with less liquidity to operate.

The deregulation of cherry purchasing introduced an additional layer of competition which drove prices higher and higher through the harvest. While the minimum price for cherry set by NAEB was 600 rwf, prices paid for cherry were, on average, 30-40% higher through the harvest as a result. While this meant that smallholders stood to gain more from their harvest, it also has a deleterious effect on quality—leading to cherry traveling greater distances and held for longer times to secure the highest price, while competition for collections meant an overall reduction in sorting and selection.

To ensure cherry was of the best-available quality, Emmanuel paid 750 rwf per kg, or 25% above NAEB's minimum price, and also paid a second payment of 150 rwf at export.


The nationally mandated farmgate price has undoubtedly increased wages for the majority of farmers across the country, but it hinders some station owners by also creating a price ceiling in an attempt to establish market parity. Emmanuel specifically experienced crossing this line in 2018, when he received a letter from the government demanding that he lower prices or else be fined. Baho has adopted a second payment system as a workaround to this issue. The increased level of traceability that Baho has been able to achieve is making the process of distributing premium payments to individual farmers much easier, as we can now begin with dedicated small groups to implement the program. We’ve started small as we explore the best methods of dispersing payments like this fairly, but we hope to scale everything up as we grow together in the future and continue to explore Rwandese farmers’ costs of living.

In May 2025, the exchange rate between USD and RWF was approximately 1 USD = 1400 RWF.

Emmanuel estimates that the current average conversion rate from cherry to green coffee is around 16% for all quality grades; however, for premium lots like this one, conversion is closer to 10-15%. In the case of Rwanda, the washing station is largely responsible for the costs associated with production and plays a massive role in adding value. Assuming this performance, the farmgate price paid to farmers contributing to this lot was approximately $2.33 per lb.

While Emmanuel owns his washing station and export company, he financed the purchase of cherry as well as operating expenses through the harvest and does not own his own milling infrastructure, accounting for significant expenses. Further, because it is landlocked, coffee must be exported through Mombasa in Kenya or Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, increasing the cost of transportation and fuel relative to coastal nations.

The import margin taken by Sundog is small relative to other importers of its size and volume; this is intentional, to keep more of the value of the coffee at origin and allow Emmanuel to reinvest in Baho toward building infrastructure and capacity for future harvests, reducing reliance not only on third party service providers for milling but also for finance.

Red bourbon coffee grown above 1700 masl using organic methods by Stanislas Kayitera in Nyamasheke District, Rwanda; processing was personally overseen by Stanislas Kayitera and the Akagera station manager, Aphrodis Gahonzire. Coffee was selectively hand-picked at peak ripeness and sorted under shade; floated multiple times; fermented in cherry for 10 hours; pulped; fermented under water for 12 hours; drained; washed and density graded in channels; skin dried for 2-3 days under shade with additional sorting for defects and evidence of Antestia bites; dried on raised beds, covered during peak sun, for 22-25 days.

This coffee is roasted light to highlight its bright acidity while supporting its sweetness and body. I recommend resting it for at least 3 weeks from its roast date for filter brewing and 4-6 weeks for espresso-style preparation (though you may wish to try it earlier to enjoy how the coffee changes and opens over time).

As filter, I prefer a ratio of 1:17 using fast-extracting burrs and low-agitation methods of brewing resulting in 21-23% EY.

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