MAMAM - Burundi Yandaro Honey Filter 250 g

Whole-bean specialty coffee from Burundi, roasted by MAMAM roasting brand. Light roast, perfect for filter coffee machines, drippers, Chemex, AeroPress, French Press, and other pour-over brewing methods. The flavour of the brew resembles yuzu, white tea and pomelo.

Origin: Burundi

Region: Kayanza

Farm: Yandaro Washing Station

Variety: Red Bourbon

Processing: Honey

Altitude: 1800 m a.s.l. 

Cupping score: 87 / 100 

ABOUT THE FARM

In the highlands of northern Burundi, close to the border with Rwanda, Yandaro Washing Station brings together the harvests of more than 2,300 smallholder coffee farmers. The station sits at 1,774 metres in the valley of the Yandaro River, with the coffee farms surrounding it reaching approximately 1,800 metres above sea level. Nearby lies the Kibira rainforest, part of the mountainous landscape that makes this corner of Kayanza particularly well suited to coffee cultivation.

Coffee production here happens on an extraordinarily small scale. The farmers supplying Yandaro cultivate an average of only around 350 coffee trees, usually alongside food crops that support their families. This makes the washing station an essential part of the coffee’s identity: rather than representing a single estate, Yandaro brings together cherries from many tiny farms and provides the infrastructure and expertise needed to sort, process and dry them.

Yandaro was established in the mid-1980s and today works with Greenco, which supports producers and washing stations throughout Kayanza with agronomy, quality control and processing expertise. The station has developed a strong reputation for coffees that combine the characteristic fruit and lively acidity of Burundi with exceptional sweetness.

ABOUT THE PROCESSING AND VARIETY

What makes this particular Yandaro lot especially interesting is the processing. Burundi is much better known for fully washed coffees, while honey processing remains relatively uncommon. For a honey coffee, ripe cherries are depulped while leaving part of the fruit’s sticky mucilage around the seed. The coffee is then dried on raised beds, where careful and regular turning helps control fermentation and encourages even drying. Yandaro’s honey lots are described as particularly juicy, with stone-fruit character and pronounced sweetness.

At the heart of the lot is Red Bourbon, the variety most closely associated with Burundi’s specialty-coffee identity. Grown at high elevation and combined with the honey process, it produces a different expression from the more familiar washed Burundis: rounder sweetness, ripe fruit and a fuller, softer character while retaining the bright, elegant acidity that makes coffees from Kayanza so distinctive.

It’s a coffee that tells the story of Burundi particularly well—not through a single famous farm or producer, but through thousands of small gardens, one washing station and a shared pursuit of quality.

RECIPE V60

• 16g of coffee

• 250g of water 96°C

• Medium Grind Size 

1. Put a paper filter in your V60 and rinse it with hot water ( 96C ). It will preheat your drip brewer and gets rid of a paper taste from the filter. For the best results always use filtered water (remember that  98,5 % of your brewed coffee is water)

2. Remove the rinsing water from the server.

3. Grind your beans just before you brew and add the coffee to the drip brewer. Gently distribute your coffee into the center of your V60.

4. Place your V60 on a vessel on a scale and make sure that your water is 96 C.

5. Tare your scale and start the timer.

6. Add 50 grams of water. Your coffee will begin to bloom.

7. At 30 seconds, add more water up to 100 grams. Pour the water slow, gently and in clockwise circles.

8. At 00:50 pour hot water to 200g. 

9. At 01:10 pour hot water to 250g.

10. Swirl your V60 and let the coffee drip. 

11. The water should have drained in around 3:00. You may need to change your grind setting, when the coffee finishes to brew too quickly or too long. But always taste and then judge your coffee.

Store in a cold and dry space.