The third coffee of our 2025 season comes to us through a collaboration with Emmanuel Rusatira of Baho in Rwanda and Sundog Trading. This microlot showcases how intentional processing and drying can produce a clean, articulate coffee that can hold up even to extended transit times. From Christopher: "I'm enthusiastic about supporting young importing companies when I can, particularly when they've committed to marketing coffee from a particular producer or supply chain. This interest—coupled with my love for coffee from Rwanda—led me to begin buying from Ben Bowdoin and his company, Sundog Trading, in 2020. In the 1970s and 1980s, coffee played a central role in the economy of Rwanda and provided a living for hundreds of thousands of smallholder coffee farmers and their families. The industry collapsed, however, following the implosion of the International Coffee Agreement, which devastated prices, and the genocide that followed in the aftermath. Following the end of the genocide, coffee production took a central role in the economic and cultural reconstruction of Rwanda. One of the genocide's survivors, Emmanuel Rusatira, would go on to first manage washing stations for other exporters and then eventually found his own export company and washing stations—establishing his company with a mission of celebrating his joie de vivre and the perseverance of the Rwandan while promoting meaningful economic opportunity for his community. For Sundog's 2024-2025 import, I collaborated with Ben and Emmanuel, writing a series of processing and drying protocols to explore not only the cup impacts of controlled fermentation but also how slow, shaded drying could improve the durability of the green coffee over long transit times. This proved to be prescient—as transit delays kept the coffee afloat for three months longer than anticipated. Emannuel oversaw the processing himself, isolating cherry from growers at the highest elevations around Muzo hill. When this coffee arrived, I was delighted with how well it withstood its long journey, presenting in the cup with sweet notes of cherry cola, caramel and blood orange.