Emmanuel purchased the Ngoma Washing Station in late 2019. It’s located in the famed Nyamasheke district and set in one of the most stunningly beautiful locations, directly on the shores of Lake Kivu. Meaning thank you old man in Kinyarwanda, Warakoze Musaza, is one of Baho’s three core lot separations. To further clarify, old man is technically the direct English translation, but Musaza carries a very strong sense of honor and respect. In this same spirit, the idea of the producer group is to honor an elder generation of coffee growers. These are all producers who’ve been growing coffee their entire lives, through which they’ve seen both the coffee sector and Rwanda as a whole drastically change. It’s a small nod and thank you for their continued commitment to coffee growing and a way in which to honor their lifelong work through a more contemporary lens of increased traceability and higher prices for their coffees. In 2018 Emmanuel began experimenting with whole cherry fermentation techniques that could differentiate him within the specialty market – you can think of these techniques as a low and slow style of cooking, but applied to coffee processing. Top-quality coffee cherries are packed tightly in plastic tanks where they ferment, in this case for 100 hours. Baho’s experimental fermentation methods would fall under the umbrella of what is often called “anaerobic natural processing,” but because all processing methods are anaerobic, we refer to this process as a low oxygen whole cherry fermentation. This method of fermentation plus longer than usual drying methods contribute to a higher intensity and complexity of fruit flavors and sweetness in the resulting coffees.