SOPACDI - Bugarula Micro- Station

SOPACDI (Solidarité Paysanne pour la Promotion des Actions Café et Development Intégral) is an organization comprising more than 5,600 farmers, roughly 20 percent of whom are women, located near Lake Kivu in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Each farmer has a very small area of farmland for coffee (fewer than 2 hectares on average), and tenders cherries to SOPACDI through the organization's 10 collection subgroups.

Joachim Munganga, who was a farmer himself, founded SOPACDI in 2003 by restoring a washing station in the area, which provided service and market access to the growers in these extremely remote highlands. Before he undertook this work, farmers had little to no means to transport coffee to the markets, and instead were forced to simply barter their coffee locally for food, clothing, and necessities. The cooperative was the first to achieve Fair Trade certification in Congo, and the coffee also carries organic certification. Members of the cooperative represent several different ethnic groups, speaking Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, and Kihavu, and many of the women members are widows.

The Bugarula micro–washing station serves 493 smallholder farmer members of SOPACDI, including 143 women. The smallholders live in and around Bugarulu village and own an average of 1.6 hectares each, with organic certification held by the cooperative. The producers deliver their coffee in cherry to the washing station, where it is fermented twice: First, it is depulped and fermented for 12 hours dry in tanks, then once more for 12 hours underwater after being washed and sorted. It's dried on raised beds under a shade cover made of nets; the drying process takes 16–25 days.

For more information about coffee production in Democratic Republic of the Congo, visit our DR Congo Origin Page.

Origin: Democratic Republic of Congo

Region: Bugarula village,

Idjwi territory, South Kivu

Farm: 493 smallholder farmer members of SOPACDI delivering to Bugarula micro–washing station

Variety: Bourbon

Altitude: 1500 masl

Proc. Method: Washed

Harvest Schedule: March–June 2020

The Cup

" Sweet, savory and tart with a sugary mouthfeel, lemongrass, toffee and sugarcane juice flavors."