€ 14,00incl. VAT
The Wildcard series is home to remarkable micro-lot coffees with exceptional taste profiles. The wild, funky and boozy character of this natural Ugandan from the Kasese region overwhelmed us! You’re in for a treat.
The first coffee to host this series is a massive treat coming from the Kasese region in Uganda. Naturally processed, its seriously sweet, boozy and funky, reminiscing a rich black forest cake. Lavender aroma predominates with wild notes of cherry and bubblegum sweetness balanced by tropical fruit acidity.
Wildcard Chigalagala 1The Kasese district lies in the Rwenzori mountain range in Western Uganda. While specialty coffee is still at its infancy in the country, the altitude (1,500-2,000m) and wet tropical climate of the region offers great potential. Most farms in the Kasese region are smallholders with just 600 – 1000 trees that each produce on average 0.5kg of green coffee. Farmers grow a mix of varieties, predominantly SL14, SL28 and SL34, just as they do in Kenya.
The Kasese Coffee Yard receives coffee cherries from several farmers. All the cherry buying is managed through an application based software. The application tracks every lot, including which farmers have contributed cherries to that specific outturn, when the cherries were harvested, farm data etc. The app also allows them to easily calculate the premiums (over the general market price) the farmers are entitled to.
At arrival the cherries are soaked in water. The healthy cherries will sink, while the diseased and damaged cherries will float and be skimmed off. The remaining cherries are hand sorted to remove diseased, under ripe and over ripe cherries.
Wildcard Chigalagala 2Afterwards the cherries are spread on raised drying beds where they naturally ferment. They are dried in thin layers to stop further fermentation. As days go by, the layers are gradually built up to between four to six centimetres. The coffees are moved frequently and they will be covered during the hottest hours of the day to protect the cherries from intense sunlight, then again at night to protect against humidity. This creates a slow and homogenous drying process which adds to the coffee’s lactic and boozy attributes. The entire drying process takes 20 days.