For this, we don’t need to give you complicated coordinates or show you small maps with points on them. You just need to listen to us:
coffeekult coffee has some real STORIES and a STORY behind the coffee to tell. In the coming weeks, you will get to know our green coffee beans even better on the coffeekult BLOG , then it will be easier to FALL IN LOVE with them. Intrigued?
Look at this great woman in the photo! She is the one who delivers the coffee directly to our COFFEE ROASTERY.
Too small and delicate, she’ll never manage!? But – quite easily!
She is a coffee powerhouse from Tyrol, with a very special coffee story. One that fascinates but also touches deep in the heart. With her family’s coffee, she is following in the footsteps of her own childhood, her parents, and siblings.
Would you like a brief introduction? Here’s a quick word rap interview:
To Rwanda you absolutely must, because: … it is beautiful!
Coffee beans mean to me: LIFE AND CHILDHOOD
Coffee + cake, or just coffee: Coffee + cake
Coffee direct import is important because: it is a WIN-WIN situation
I drink my last coffee of the day at: … I only drink in the morning (laughs loudly!)
Prefer espresso or cappuccino: Espresso Our coffee from Rwanda tastes like: life, passion
Prefer coffee at home or in the café:
At home I prepare my coffee with: Bialetti
Muraho Rwanda! Hello Rwanda! coffeekult has received a coffee addition! We already had the coffee beans from Rwanda in our program in December as the rotating Coffee of the Month. It not only blew us away, so we thought: we’ll add it to the coffeekult assortment for good.
A coffee from the heart of Africa – from the Western Province of Rwanda and DIRECTLY IMPORTED by Immaculee Steinlechner. Without detours or intermediaries, the native Rwandan imports the coffee from her family and friends directly to the heart of the Alps, to her new home in Tyrol.
For Immaculee Steinlechner, or Imma as she is fondly called, coffee cherries were actually quite normal. Instead of apples and pears as in Tyrol, coffee cherries grew everywhere on the plantations during her childhood in Rwanda. Two fruits stood out to her, she tells us: the avocado and, of course, the coffee cherry.
And why?
“With the avocado, we could do whatever we wanted, but with the coffee cherries, we had to do everything secretly because our parents didn’t approve. We would sneakily put them in our mouths, suck on them, and then spit them out! And Papa would always say, ‘Stop this nonsense.'”
Chocolate or “Zuckerlen,” as the now genuine Tyrolean calls the candies, were scarce in her childhood. Fruits were thus something special, but they were not always available and not always sweet.
Some coffee cherries taste like real cherries, Immaculee tells us, and they liked that: “When the parents weren’t looking, we would pick the reddest ones. We couldn’t do anything with the pit, so we just spat it out and drove our parents crazy!” Instead of hay work as in Tyrol, there was a lot of work to be done on the coffee plantations in Rwanda.
Her father and grandfather initially didn’t have much raw coffee, they operated it on the side, processing it at home or selling it to a cooperative as a small side income, Imma explains.
When it came to helping out on the farm, little Immaculee was probably just like every other child her age all around the world: full of mischief!
“Whether I was really helpful on the plantation as a child…?” at this question, Imma laughs loudly and with all her heart. Occasionally, she watched over her younger brother, but what she was good at – she remembers – was laying dried grass around the coffee plant, where the cherries would later fall. But that was the season when the cherries were not yet ripe, smiles the supposed coffee cherry nibbler.
The coffee drink was always something mysterious in her childhood: it was more commonly consumed by men than women. When her grandfather sat with the other men, they occasionally roasted the beans themselves and then drank coffee. Coffee was actually for the better-off, she tells us, for those who could afford it, and less of an everyday drink. That was more for black tea or milk tea.
Today, coffee means something completely different to Immaculee; it puts her in the footsteps of her parents and siblings. It is a connection to a very great loss:
As an eight-year-old girl, she had to witness the brutal murder of her entire family. For the simple and incomprehensible reason that they were Tutsis and not Hutus.
On April 6, 1994, the plane of the then Rwandan president was shot down by unknown assailants. Later that same night, the Hutu government called for the extermination of the Tutsi minority, whom they blamed for the attack. A genocide that resulted in up to a million deaths!
Immaculee barely survived and went to live with her aunt in the city. At the age of 12, she was then adopted by another aunt, who had married an Austrian, and came to Tyrol. With her family’s coffee, she is now following in the footsteps of her own childhood, using it to remember her parents and siblings, as Immaculee says. “It is a connection to my loss, but it is now also an opportunity to support my family on-site, without it being called a donation, but rather a win-win situation!”
coffeekult doesn’t need seals, or traceability labels! We prefer to look and control ourselves where our raw coffee beans come from and, above all, who is behind it.
The coffee farmers benefit more from DIRECT TRADE than from a quality seal. coffeekult can directly pay the higher prices to the cooperatives and farmers, which connects and brings true sustainability!
From this, not only good coffee emerges but often also a years-long friendship!
The family tradition of coffee cultivation by Immaculee Steinlechner is continued by her cousin Umuhoza and her husband Josias. Now, after years of hard work, her surviving family is ready to export coffee beans themselves, and the former coffee cherry-nibbling Imma, as a Tyrolean, wants to help and bring the family’s coffee into circulation.
Thanks to the great collaboration of family and friends, it is now also possible to export Green Coffee without detours and intermediaries.
That’s what coffeekult calls real sustainability!
In this coffee bean, you can experience the throbbing heart of Africa, in all its vibrancy and joy of life. The very nutritious and volcanic soil in the region has allowed a very special Arabica variety to thrive, giving the new coffeekult addition from Rwanda incredibly beautiful flavor notes: chocolatey, floral, stone fruit, and raspberry jam with a long-lasting finish, green apple, and brown sugar.
Doesn’t that sound enticing and exciting!
Coffeekult says: Urakoze cyane
Many thanks, Immaculee, for your exciting, lovable, funny, and above all very personal stories!
Next Stop: Rwanda?
At some point, we’ll visit Immaculee’s family in Rwanda, and then we have to do one thing: nibble on coffee cherries!
And the spit-out beans will be roasted over the fire right away, after delicious dishes like plantains, isombe, or ugali, and then coffee will be prepared!
coffeekult is looking forward to it!
