Land for Burundi Coffee

Following @kristyjcarlson on Twitter and Instagram gets me excited about being part of this family of four that has their hearts set on helping a community in rural Burundi produce amazing coffee. I’m so happy to be a part of it.

Building a coffee washing station in Burundi has meant taking on an obscenely huge amount of challenges and obstacles on the way to realizing the dream.  Let’s just say accomplishing something like this in Burundi has few more challenges in it than building that lemonade stand in Wisconsin when I was six.

For months now we have set our sites on building this coffee washing station.  Finding the perfect location was key to making it a success.  After 3 years of sourcing and cupping Burundi coffee, I knew where we needed to be.  The place we were looking for was sitting in the middle of a triangle of the best coffee washing stations producing the best coffee in all of Burundi.  Besides the best coffee, it was a place where farmers are too far to carry their coffee to the nearest station forcing them to sell to local buyers at ridiculously low prices.  It has one river, bringing plenty of fresh clean water to run the de-pulper.  Sitting at the perfect altitude with a micro-climate that is unique and ideal for producing the kind of coffee that makes you (ok, maybe just me) go weak in the knees.

Three years to make certain of this specific spot.  Months to get all the paperwork done and meet all the farmers to explain the vision.  Weeks to get all the signatures of the owners of the land willing to sell and the neighboring farmers as witnesses. Then, on the last day before signing, we find out that two of the five farmers don’t feel like selling anymore.

What do we do?  Tomorrow we go back to the land to talk to the farmers.  The area co-op president and commune elder have talked through our vision and are coming with us to make sure that the farmers know the kind of impact this station will have on the lives of all 2,500 families in the four surrounding hills.  If they still decide they don’t want to sell are we back to square one?  No, the commune elder said that we can have the two hectors next to the spot we want that are owned by the commune.  The rivers the same, the slope is great, and the view is stunning.  He gets the vision.  He has caught hope.  He tells us that they will do whatever it takes to see us partner with them.

We have found our spot and started to put down our roots.  This challenge is just one of many in our way, but if it was easy we wouldn’t need to do it, it would already be done. Am I Worried? No, but we are weeks away from starting to build on land that we still don’t own with money we still have not raised… It will all happen though, it will all happen.

Coffee Guy