MUSEMA, BURUNDI – Bright light sifted down through eucalyptus leaves and fell to the earth in patterns. Coffee buying season had just begun. A coffee farmer walked up to the scale, a brown burlap sack slung over his back. He poured his coffee cherries out onto a green mesh net suspended above the ground; like bright red stars they came tumbling out. He began to sort the good cherries from the bad, submerging them in water, causing the bad ones to float to the top. He proudly presented his crop to FH staff and after being weighed, the farmer was paid a fair wage for his coffee cherries, higher per kilo than what the government currently pays.

His cherries were then combined with the other buys of the day and put through the washing machine, which removes the cherry from the bean. The sheathed beans, strewn out on drying tables, will spend the next 20 days being thrown into the air and shifted onto a series of tables to dry. From there they will be shelled, roasted, and then brewed. Coffee. From Burundian cherries.

Though the washing station is currently run by FH, once the business becomes profitable, it will be placed into the hands of the farmers, who all live within a few kilometers of the washing station, their coffee fields rising sharply up the hillsides. The proximity to the coffee farms means less time travelling to the washing station, which means a fresher bean and better coffee.

Now, the farmers will benefit from the harvest, the washing and the selling of the coffee to roasters. The market has just opened up to them. And the profits from a product born from the land will come back to the community. For the first time.