Musasa is a town in the Gakenke district of northern Rwanda. The mill that processes the coffee is called Dukunde Kawa Musasa. The cooperative has over 2000 members, but when you realize that in Rwanda each farmer has less than 200 trees (they don't even talk in terms of hectares or acres), this is not huge. Dukunde Kawa did well in the 2010 Cup of Excellence, winning 2nd place with a score of 90.08 and 7th place with 88.16! The mill is at 2000 meters, with coffee grown at 1500-2000 meters at most. At the higher altitudes the coffee ripens later, part of the reason this coffee always seems to arrive long after our other Rwanda lots. The altitude also means fairly cool fermentation temperatures when performing the wet process on the coffee, and long fermentation times. This, along with the careful cherry sorting before and after picking from the tree, and the Bourbon cultivar, greatly influences the Rwanda flavor profile. It's a coffee that has great classic character, sharing some aspects with Bourbon type coffees from Central America. The bean is dense; the flavors exist in a compact range, classic bittersweet balance, and a joy to roast.