SCORCHED EARTH EXORCISM, Burundi

Bukeye Washing Station stands in the Kayanza province of northern Burundi, high in the hills at around 1,750 MASL. Cherry is carried in from the surrounding collines, Rubirizi and Gaharo among them, hand-picked by smallholders who each tend only a few hundred trees.

The station is carried under the Long Miles Coffee Project, founded by Ben and Kristy Carlson. Their coffee scouts live among the growers, walking the hills, tending soil and shade and waging a slow war on the antestia bug that scars the cup. Thousands of families deliver here. The intent is singular: lift smallholder Burundi coffee to the grade it has always deserved.

Bourbon is the varietal of record. One of the two archetypal arabica lineages, a natural mutation of Typica first cultivated on Île Bourbon, it is held for its sweetness, its florals, and a structured, layered acidity that Burundi's altitude sharpens.

Washed. Cherry floated and sorted on delivery, depulped, fermented, then washed clean and dried slow on raised beds, turned by hand through the day. Clarity held from parchment to export. Dried orange, toffee, elderflower. Nothing is surrendered.