About the coffee
- Cupping notes: Low acidity, good body, good sweetness, notes of dark chocolate, molasses, and graham cracker
- Tree type: Bourbon, Kenya SL14, Kenya SL28
- Altitude: 4,500-6,500 feet
- Preparation: Washed and sun-dried
About the people who grow it
Top: Mt. Elgon, by Ron Waddington (flickr.com, CC BY-SA 2.0)Bottom: Ugandan children, by Andrew S (unsplash.com)
The name of this coffee is a reference to the Bugisu tribe, native to Ugandan mountainous northwest. During the final years of British colonialism in the 1950s, the Bugisu people navigated agricultural politics to form Uganda’s strongest coffee coop. The Bugisu Cooperative Union officially formed in 1954 after decades of struggle with British and European authority over control of the coffee on Mt. Elgon—considered Uganda’s best by far. Early on the union helped mobilize and market the coffees from Mt. Elgon and was considered a strong source of unity for the Bugisu people as well as an economic empowerment engine for the greater native region. From the mid-50s to the mid-90s, as production increased, “Bugisu” became synonymous with top quality coffee from Uganda. Although coops have waned in Uganda since the 1990s, “Bugisu” has remained a prideful mark of smallholder coffee from the western slope of Mt. Elgon.
Kawacom, one of Uganda’s top exporters, invests heavily in this area and keeps the Bugisu history alive in their profiles. Their “Sipi Falls Coffee Project” includes a centralized wet mill that buys cherry directly from local farms, as well as traceable purchasing of home-processed parchment coffee from thousands of smallholders across the Kapchorwa, Bulambuli and Kween districts on Mt. Elgon. “Bugisu” is a label for all coffee grown and processed by individual smallholder farmers that Kawacom blends and mills for export. Farmers across Mt. Elgon for years have been (and still are) accustomed to basic home processing techniques. Their cooperation with Kawacom allows very small farms to thrive, while benefiting from the training, quality control, and accountability provided by this larger marketing group. Collection and milling standards need to be strict to control for inconsistencies; and contributing farms must be well-documented to maintain certifications. Kawacom invests in freshness and quality by placing buying offices across the mountain, serving traditional smallholders in their own communities.
Kawacom, one of Uganda’s top exporters, invests heavily in this area and keeps the Bugisu history alive in their profiles. Their “Sipi Falls Coffee Project” includes a centralized wet mill that buys cherry directly from local farms, as well as traceable purchasing of home-processed parchment coffee from thousands of smallholders across the Kapchorwa, Bulambuli and Kween districts on Mt. Elgon. “Bugisu” is a label for all coffee grown and processed by individual smallholder farmers that Kawacom blends and mills for export. Farmers across Mt. Elgon for years have been (and still are) accustomed to basic home processing techniques. Their cooperation with Kawacom allows very small farms to thrive, while benefiting from the training, quality control, and accountability provided by this larger marketing group. Collection and milling standards need to be strict to control for inconsistencies; and contributing farms must be well-documented to maintain certifications. Kawacom invests in freshness and quality by placing buying offices across the mountain, serving traditional smallholders in their own communities.