Burundi - Giku Hill Natural [Auction Lot]

Description

This is our first year participating in the Long Miles Coffee Project private auction. During the season, every day cherry is delivered to the stations with hill level separation - and these lots are continually evaluated for quality throughout the season. The auction sees the very best of the harvest - tiny day lots - separated out and sold directly to roasters, returning a higher premium directly to Long Miles. This is the very best of Giku hill, and it’s a banger Brew Guide: Best Brewed with: Filter Lightest Roaster Influence: We nearly always roast coffees with a blank reference screen, starting fresh - but in this instance, we used the last Giku natural lot as a ref. This day lot wanted to run a little slower (marginally higher moisture content) - but we found we liked the result. Bright and jammy Best Rested: 4+ weeks Filter: 62g/L, 94°C when fresh; 90°C when rested Espresso: Turbos - 18g to 46g in 22 - 26s. Excellent as espresso. We're tasting: Big yellow fruit aromatics - pomelo rind and yellow plum, alongside summer berries. In the cup it's creamy and sweet - we find a ripe strawberry note alongside slightly lactic acidity, reminding us of strawberry milkshake, with sweet pastry notes supporting (buttery, brioche, hints cinnamon and nutmeg). As it cools we find some blackcurrant leaf, ripe persimmon and golden raspberry. Traceability Country of Origin: Burundi Region: Gikungere, Butaganzwa, Kayanza Province Producer: 150 smallholder farmers via Ninga CWS on Giku hill - 39 of which contributed cherry to this particular selection. Station: Ninga CWS Variety: Red Bourbon Elevation: 1600 - 1750 MASL Process: Traditional Natural: Ripe cherries picked and delivered on foot or bicycle to Ninga CWS. Cherries floated and hand-sorted before being taken directly to raised drying beds. Whole cherries dried for 25 - 30 days, reaching target moisture content of 10.5%. Import Partner: Direct with Long Miles Harvest: Crop 25/26 - Arrived UK: June 8th 2026. Fourth harvest purchasing coffee from Giku Hill smallholders. The Story Giku Hill & Long Miles: Long Miles Coffee Project was founded in 2011 by Ben and Kristy Carlson, initially operating a single washing station at Bukeye in Muramvya Province. The organisation has since grown into a vertically integrated producer and exporter working with several thousand smallholder families across three washing stations in Burundi, with further operations in Uganda and Kenya. Their sourcing model is built around hill-level traceability, whereby cherry deliveries are logged against the specific hill each farmer works, and lots are kept physically separate through fermentation, drying, milling and export. This allows individual hillsides to be offered as distinct lots rather than being pooled under a broader station or regional name. Ninga is the newest of the three Burundian washing stations, and the one through which Giku cherry is processed. Land for the station was purchased in 2017, but construction and licensing took the better part of three years to complete, with first production beginning in 2020. Prior to Ninga becoming operational, farmers from Gikungere and the surrounding hills were required to carry their cherry on foot to the Bukeye station, a journey of several hours each way across two rivers and a provincial border. The opening of Ninga has substantially shortened that journey and brought processing infrastructure within reach of communities that previously had limited access to it. This is our fourth consecutive harvest sourcing from the smallholders of Gikungere hill. Keeping lots separated at hill level adds a meaningful amount of work for a washing station in terms of logging, processing and storage, and that additional effort is more easily justified where roasters commit to returning for the same hills in subsequent harvests. Consistent repeat purchasing is therefore a fairly central part of how a hill-level sourcing model is sustained over time, and is something we place real weight on in how we approach our buying at origin. The wider context for the 2025/26 Burundian harvest remains a challenging one. Exporters in country are currently navigating chronic fuel shortages, a dual exchange rate system that disadvantages those converting export revenues at the official rate, and a generally difficult logistical environment for moving coffee out of a landlocked country. Against that backdrop, the work being done by organisations like Long Miles in maintaining quality, traceability and a meaningful return of value to producers becomes all the more significant, and is a substantial part of why we continue to prioritise these relationships within our green buying.