Butegana is one of the first washing stations in Burundi, built in 1952. The Burundi season is one of the highlights of the annual coffee calendar for residents of the region. All coffee in the country is produced almost entirely by small farmers.
The average small farmer has about 250 coffee trees on his plots, they are called Red Bourbon. During the harvest season, coffee is harvested by hand by almost all smallholder families and delivered to the Butegan station.
Employees of the washing station manually select ripe, red cherries. Then the cherries are placed in containers and Intenso yeast, developed by the French company Lalcafe, is added. Yeast reveals the same fresh and fruity taste of coffee beans. Cherries are left to ferment in this environment for 36 hours. After that, she is laid out to dry on African beds. Under favorable weather conditions, the cherry dries for about 10 to 14 days.
