The Tropic Coffee story
Tropic Coffee Rwanda is the creation of husband-and-wife team Christophe Rugira and Divine Mutuyimana. While officially established in October 2015, its story began much earlier.
Divine has been passionate about coffee since 2009, when she was 19 years old. At that time, she was helping her family’s company in sourcing coffee from cooperatives and farmers.
Divine, the youngest of seven children, grew up in the family business. She saw a need for better data management, identifying a gap in controlling coffee data from farm to warehouse.
In 2013, after graduating with a bachelor’s degree in computer science, she developed software to track, audit, and manage inventory stock. It streamlined the business and improved efficiencies.
In 2015, Divine met Christophe, an agro-climate specialist who was working in the coffee industry. They decided to join forces to strengthen her family’s coffee business.
They wanted to operate more formally and extend coffee sourcing to support smallholder Rwandan coffee farmers.
Investing in washing stations and farmers
Divine was keen to invest in washing stations to produce the finest quality coffees from across Rwanda. This is why we operate in three different regions of Rwanda, each with different altitudes, climate, soil composition, and rainfall. As such, the aromas, flavours and tastes of our coffees are unique and varied.
But equally important to growing quality coffee are the people who grow it. At the heart of Tropic Coffee is making a tangible difference to the livelihoods of our coffee farmers. This is a key motivation for Divine and Christophe.
Supporting farmers to produce the best quality Arabica cherries means that Tropic Coffee can deliver a premium product to its customers.
This, in turn, commands premium prices which are shared fairly with the farmers. Improving livelihoods and wellbeing within communities helps farmers see the value in their crop.
Thanks to our coffee washing stations (CWS), local farmers can sell and deliver their cherries nearby, instead of travelling far away, at considerable cost.
Divine and Christophe continually strive for new opportunities. They understand what needs to be done to take Tropic Coffee to the next level. They are currently working towards organic certification across their all operations and expanding their export base.
Their ultimate aim is for Tropic’s single origin Arabica coffee to reach more customers, in more countries. And for coffee-growing communities in the breathtaking highlands of Rwanda to reap the rewards of their hard work and dedication to producing exquisite coffee.