BUKEYE WASHING STATION

Bukeye Washing Station is located on the northern border of the Kayanza Province, in Gitega Province, and is named for the Bukeye village, which sits at 1,760 m.a.s.l. Bukeye washing station is located just beyond the village and has its own borehole and a granite-filtered well. This is the birthplace of Long Miles and of the Coffee Scouts program. Bukeye washing station has been the launching pad for an extensive organic pesticide program targeting antestia (the colorful bug linked to the potato defect), as well as post-harvest pruning, mulching, and fertilizing campaigns. It has been operational since April 2013. During the washed process, freshly harvested cherries are delivered by farmers to the washing station, floated, and hand-sorted for ripeness upon arrival. The cherries are pulped and undergo a single fermentation process. Parchment spends around 12 hours dry fermenting. The parchment is sometimes ‘footed’ after fermentation. A team will agitate and dance on the slippery coffee parchment with their feet, helping to loosen any remaining mucilage. It is then rinsed, graded by density, and left to soak for another four to six hours in the final rinse tank. The parchment is carried to covered drying tables, where it spends between six and 48 hours pre-drying. During this time, it is hand-picked for under-ripeness, over-ripeness, insect damage, and visual defects. It is then moved to traditional African-raised tables, where it slowly dries for 16 to 20 days (depending on the weather) until it reaches the desired 10.5% moisture level. During the natural process, cherries are floated, hand-sorted, and then placed directly on the drying tables. The whole cherry spends 25-30 days drying in its skin, slowly turning from deep red to a prune-like purple-black when fully dry, reaching a moisture level of 10.5%.

Gaharo holds a special place in Long Miles Coffee's heart; it is the hill where the journey began. The first washing station built by Long Miles rests at the feet of Gaharo hill, on a piece of land that seemed neglected or overlooked by the local population. Every inch of it was cleared by Gaharo farmers, and bricks were made from clay found in the valley below. The same farmers who helped to build Bukeye from scratch now deliver their cherries to it. Gaharo farmers have become neighbors and co-workers. Long Miles has grown, worked, and developed as a community “twese hamwe”; all of us together. What sets this hill apart from others in the region is the number of blacksmiths hand-crafting metal into knives and farming tools.