Vunga is a cooperative that has partnered with Muraho Trading Co. to assist with finance and education. The team at Vunga is led by women and has 260 active members who contribute. The operation is not of huge scale, but the quality is remarkable and has been recognised a handful of times, with a placement as high as 4th in the Cup of Excellence Rwanda.

All the coffee produced at Vunga is washed. After being pulped in a Penagos depulper, the coffee is fermented for an average of 6 hours before being laid out to dry for 25–35 days on raised beds. When we were there, the parchment was clean, the beds were being raked, shifted, and sorted, and the team behind Vunga is always very excited for our visits and to meet foreign buyers.

We believe this cooperative has the potential to achieve amazing cup quality and demonstrate the operations of a sustainable cooperative model in the coffee industry. Daphrose, the station manager, is a very highly regarded and strong-willed woman who asked for feedback on her execution stages at the cooperative. This alone is a sign that great things are to come for the members of Vunga and the coffees they're producing.

Northern Rwanda sits close to the borders of Uganda and Congo. The terrain surrounding Vunga is composed of rolling hills, banana trees, and a cool climate influenced by the Gicice River that keeps the maturation of coffee in the area happening slowly, leading to sweet and dense cherries when ripe.

Finca El Carmen has been producing coffee since the 1950s in the regions of Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz Naranjo in Guatemala. This farm is located in the mountains that surround the beautiful Laguna del Pilo. The farm was acquired by Mr. Rigoberto Morales Santos in 1970, the father of today's owner, Ivan Ricardo Morales.

Rigo, Ivan’s youngest son and an agronomist who graduated from Zamorano, has taken the lead with the farm and has taken big quality-oriented steps with it. El Carmen has its own wet mill and drying patios, and it's looking to improve its processes year after year.