BURUNDI - GITWE HILL - RED BOURBON - WASHED

The Long Miles Coffee Project was founded by Ben and Kristy Carlson in Burundi in 2011.

After moving to Burundi, they saw firsthand the challenges facing coffee farmers in the country’s newly privatized coffee sector, from unstable prices to limited access to quality-focused processing infrastructure.

What began as a response to those challenges grew into the Long Miles Coffee Project, an initiative built around supporting smallholder farmers through better processing, agronomy programs, and long-term partnerships.

Today, Long Miles works with thousands of farmers across Burundi, Uganda & Kenya. Focusing on improving coffee quality while helping create more stable and sustainable livelihoods for the communities who grow it.

This lot comes from Gitwe Hill in Kayanza Province, where coffee grows between 1,900–2,100 meters above sea level, a high-altitude environment that supports slow cherry maturation and layered cup complexity.

This coffee is produced by hundreds of smallholder farmers, each cultivating small plots of Red Bourbon trees. During harvest, cherries are carefully picked and delivered to the Heza Washing Station, where they are fully washed and dried.

Cherries are hand-picked at peak ripeness, floated and carefully sorted, then de-pulped on the day of harvest. The coffee undergoes a two-stage fermentation, first dry for around 12 hours, then submerged in water for 24 hours before being washed and dried on traditional African raised beds for 16–20 days.