02Burundi
112,000 bags (ICO 2009)In-depth country profile: production, varieties, classification, history, current situation and points still uncertain. Region: Africa.
Burundi is one of those small countries that people rarely talk about, yet which live on coffee far more intensely than one would imagine. Introduced in the 1930s, coffee growing today involves more than 800,000 households (most of the rural population) on tiny plots of a few hundred coffee trees.
Mostly mild highland arabica is grown here, between 1,250 and 2,000 meters, with a little canephora lower down. Almost no chemical inputs are used, and the bet is on the wet process. For some years now, the country has been trying to stand out through quality, with its “Ngoma” label and weekly auctions on samples.
- Botanical species
- Arabica (96%), Canephora (4%)
- Varieties
- Bourbon, Blue Mountain
- Altitude
- 800 to 1,000 m (Canephora); 1,000 to 2,000 m (Arabica)
- Shade
- Forest and fruit trees
- Harvest
- Manual and selective
- Processing
- Wet and semi-wet process; natural sun drying
- Sorting
- By density
- Harvest period
- April to July
- Packaging
- 60-kg bag
The laboratory of the Office du Café du Burundi (OCIBU) grades coffees by processing method, then by number of defects and bean size.
The treatment
Fully Washed (FW): thoroughly washed; Washed (W): washed.
Type: defects and size
| Type | Screen | Max defects | Max broken beans |
| Ngoma Mild | 18 | 4 % | 0,15 % |
| AA | 18 | 7 % | 0,15 % |
| AB (W coffees only) | 16/18 | 10 % | 0,5 % |
| A | 16 | 10 % | 0,5 % |
| B | 14 | 15 % | 1,5 % |
| PB (peaberry) | Peaberry | 5 % | 0.25% foreign matter |
For all these types: no foreign matter or major defect tolerated. Other designations: TT (large-bean triage), T (medium beans), Stocklot (unsorted). The name of the region is often highlighted in the designation.
History
Coffee did not come to Burundi until the twentieth century. The profile dates the introduction to the 1930s, under the Belgian administration of Ruanda-Urundi.
The world census of exports compiled by Ukers in 1922 confirms this, and it confirms it by an absence. Ukers gives one line for Uganda, 9,999,845 pounds in 1918. One for the Belgian Congo, 347,588 pounds in 1919. None for Ruanda-Urundi. A territory that does not appear in a table of exporters exports nothing, in other words does not yet produce.
The country's planting material is that of the Great Lakes missions, and two lineages make it up. First Mibirizi, a Typica-type selection made by missionaries in Rwanda in the 1930s. Then Bourbon Mayaguez 139, introduced into Rwanda and Burundi at the same time from the Mayagüez station in Puerto Rico.
Country Profiles, Marco De Sousa Rosa, 2026; Ukers 1922, ch. XXII, p. 289-291 (exports of the producing countries); World Coffee Research, Coffee Varieties Catalog 2025, Mibirizi and Bourbon Mayaguez 139 profiles- The country's recent history is first of all a history of prices. The export quotas of the 1962 International Coffee Agreement collapsed in July 1989, when the members did not renew the economic clauses
- between 1997 and 2001, the indicative price of the International Coffee Organization fell to a third of its value
- that is, the lowest real prices since 1900. For an economy where coffee is the leading export and where the state lived off the margin between the world price and the price paid to the grower, these two dates weigh more heavily than any agronomic innovation.
Today
The volume shown at the head of the profile, 112,000 bags, is that of the profile itself, based on ICO 2009 statistics. It serves as an order of magnitude and nothing more, because no more recent figure could be sourced here.
This small volume rests on a considerable population. Coffee growing involves more than 800,000 households, on plots of a few hundred coffee trees each. Many families, very little coffee per family: that is the agrarian structure of the country, not an accident of the harvest.
Arabica occupies the highlands, between 1,250 and 2,000 meters, and canephora stays lower down. Almost no chemical inputs are used.
The varieties declared are Bourbon and Blue Mountain. Processing is by the wet process and the semi-wet process. Both pulp the cherry before drying the bean, but the second leaves part of the mucilage stuck to the parchment. Drying is in the sun.
Country Profiles, Marco De Sousa Rosa, 2026The strategy for getting out of the crisis is one of quality: the Ngoma label, weekly auctions on samples, manual and selective harvesting. It is the same choice as that of neighboring Rwanda, made at about the same time and on the same Bourbon material.
Country Profiles, Marco De Sousa Rosa, 2026Gray areas
- The date of introduction, “the 1930s,” comes from the profile and has not been cross-checked against a primary source.
- No production volume after 2009 could be sourced for this country.
- The exact share of canephora in Burundian production is not established by the available sources.
- The “Blue Mountain” grown in Burundi is not linked by any source consulted to the Jamaican Typica of the same name.