Rwanda's Kivu region produces great-tasting coffee

I try a different coffee pretty much every week. This week I had my first taste of Rwanda, in the form of Rwandan COOPAC from local micro-roaster Barista’s Beans (of Hyde Park, Vermont).

This coffee is uniquely flavored with honey, peach and citrus, and most importantly, it comes from a fair-trade cooperative of Rwandan coffee growers (COOPAC, founded in 2001). Their website explains how these premium beans got from the war-torn country to my local market:

Rwanda has some of the best coffee growing conditions in the world. The COOPAC coffee cooperative is located on the steep slopes of northern Rwanda’s volcanic mountains, where the rich soil, high altitudes and abundant rainfall give the bourbon coffee trees dotting the slopes above Lake Kivu the best environment to yield the best Arabica beans. COOPAC has been Fair Trade certified and currently COOPAC specialty coffee is distributed in Rwanda, the USA and France.

Coffee was long the Rwanda’s main export, with 77 out of 146 districts producing coffee beans. But tea now generates more income. Coffee reduction has halved since the genocide of 1994, with only 14,000 tons valued at $15 million exported in 2003 compared to nearly 29,000 tons worth $38 million in 1993.

However, COOPAC membership has doubled every year, starting off with 110 farmers in 2001 to over 2,200 members today.

Barista’s Beans is a husband-and-wife team—the husband being a former web developer and the wife being a Columbian food aficionado. In addition to their quality coffee, I’ve always appreciated their packaging (a ziploc for better sealing, full 16oz bags instead of 12oz “pounds,” and a sleek look to boot). I was pleased to find their coffee back on the shelves after it had been absent for seemingly months. Apparently they suffered a house fire, but thankfully they are back in business. I just hope the couple’s mobile espresso van is still operational.

Even if you don’t live in Vermont, you can still buy their coffee online—and even get a coffee “subscription.”

1. Quinoa needs to be washed. A lot. The Incas called it “the mother of all grains,” but I call it “the mother of all pains.” It’s incredibly healthy, tastes good (in a very unique way), and has a hip-sounding name, but as far as preparation goes, it is definitely no Minute Rice. (Fortunately, many quinoa companies sell their grains pre-washed.)

2. Granola is fun and easy to make, after all, as long as you don’t burn it. I made about a month’s worth of granola this weekend using these tips from How to Cook Everything author Mark Bittman, who says, “You don’t have to be a hippie to make granola, but it helps…”

I also had a few dreams this MLK weekend, but you really don’t want to hear about those.

Before the new year started, I had the cutesy idea of trying to cook something from a different continent every day of the week. (Get it, seven continents, seven days?) That proved to be an unrealistic goal since the ingredients don’t overlap enough–I’d have wasted way too much leftover quinoa and couscous.

So, for now I’m trying to come up with one item a week that I really want to cook (or that my girlfriend demands I make) and then form a chain of meals throughout the week linked by the ingredients of that dish.

I started this week making veggie quesadillas, black beans, and cilantro-lime rice, which I’m already well versed in preparing. (It was so good that I almost changed my middle name to Jose.) This caused me to have leftover onions and spinach. So the next day, I incorporated the onions and spinach into a Hungarian knockoff dish inspired by famed Vermont chef Marta Pauer, sauteeing the onions, adding a tablespoon or so of paprika, and tossing in some carrots, spinach, tofu, and peppers. Good stuff! That left me with half a block of firm tofu, half a bag of carrots, and a swelling food ego.

“Why not go Asian?” I thought. Tofu, carrots, onions–that should fit pretty much any Asian dish. I even had sesame seeds, Soy and Teriyaki sauces, and ginger sitting around the kitchen. I typed some of those ingredients into Google, found a soy-ginger tofu recipe that had gotten rave reviews, and gave it the old post-college try.

Yeah, that did not go well. With all the soy sauce and ginger the recipe required, plus a couple of ill-advised substitutions, it came out tasting like pure iodized salt. I ate just enough to satisfy some basic nutritional requirements and cut my losses.

So, it looks like the major obstacle in my quest to become a top veggie chef is going to be the continent of Asia, which is sad because I really like Asian food and there really aren’t any good Asian restaurants within 100 miles of Burlington. (I thought I found one last year, until it gave me food poisoning.)

I’m sure in the end the struggle to learn to make Asian cuisine will work out. Maybe then I can find a nice open lot somewhere near Spago and set up shop. For a name, how does The Burmese Snowman sound?