Burundi –– Campazi

This coffee comes to us from the Campazi community in Kayanza, Burundi, through our long relationship with Joel Edwards and Jake Smith at Red Fox.

Burundi has been part of our story for a very long time. Jake has helped us source coffees since before Peregrine was Peregrine, and the producers in Kayanza represent our longest-running partnership. That kind of relationship matters to us. It is not just a buying history. It is a shared trust built over many seasons.

Jake visits Burundi regularly and has maintained longtime relationships with Picasso and Zeph, two of the co-owners of Burundi Seeds Specialty. Longtime Peregrine customers may recognize past coffees we have taken from this same team of farmers, including Picasso’s Palate, Remera, Ruvumu, and Umuco, to name a few.

Campazi is a smallholder community in northern Burundi, near the Kibira National Forest, where coffee grows at high elevations in rich red clay soils. The farms here are small, often only one or two hectares, and coffee is grown alongside food crops like bananas, maize, cassava, and beans. For many families in Burundi, coffee is not just a crop. It is one of the few meaningful ways to access income for school, livestock, and household needs.

The coffee from Campazi is processed at the Umoco washing station, whose name means “light” in Kirundi. Producers deliver ripe cherry to the station, often on foot, by bicycle, or by motorcycle. From there, the coffee goes through a careful washed process, including 12 hours of wet fermentation followed by another 12 hours in cement tanks. The parchment is then dried slowly for 20 to 25 days on traditional African raised beds.

There is a reason we keep returning to Burundi.

The coffees can be difficult to source, difficult to move, and difficult to build around consistently. But when they are right, they carry a kind of depth and beauty that is hard to find anywhere else. Campazi is exactly that kind of coffee. It is vivid and structured, with a sweetness that reminds us of cherry cola, a bright citrus edge like blood orange, and a deeper red wine quality that gives the cup weight and shape.

It is lively, but not thin. Fruit-forward, but not loud. There is a composed quality to it that we love, and the finish stays with you.

We are grateful to Joel and Jake at Red Fox for the years of work behind coffees like this, and especially for the trust that has made this relationship possible over so many seasons. Burundi has been with us from the beginning, and Campazi is a beautiful reminder of why.

Profile

• Roast: Light
• Region: Kayanza, Burundi
• Community: Campazi
• Farm: Various smallholder producers
• Process: Washed
• Elevation: 1,850–2,100 MASL
• Variety: Red Bourbon
• Cup: Cherry Cola, Blood Orange, Red Wine