This season, Vunga processed a record of 185 tons of coffee cherry. In the 2018 harvest, Vunga made significant strides with their infrastructure, building out a coffee nursery and providing better assistance to the farmers who contribute their cherry. These improvements have helped in both the quality of the coffee and the volume produced. 

In 2019, Vunga was impacted by a landslide. When a large boulder detached from a nearby hill, it rolled nearly two kilometres, damaging much of the infrastructure the cooperative had recently developed. 

All the coffee in production at Vunga is undergoing a washed process. After being pulped in a Penagos depulper, the coffee is fermented for an average of 6 hours before being laid to dry for 35 days. When we visited the farm, the parchment was clean, the beds were being raked, shifted and sorted, and the team behind Vunga was very excited 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. Emerine, 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.

Read more on our experience in our Journal from 2018 or 2019.