Rwanda - Shyira Anoxic Natural [25/26]

Shyira is one of our benchmark Rwandan washing stations, where exceptional altitude and careful post-harvest work regularly produce some of the most compelling lots we buy.

This season's anoxic natural is a departure from the brighter, lighter character we've come to expect: having had to cover the cherries on the drying bed for longer during early drying due to rains has contributed a noticeably denser, heavier cup profile.

We've applied our lightest possible roast approach to pull as much aromatics & clarity as we can from it, but this is ultimately a coffee shaped by the conditions of its harvest year, and it wears that honestly. If you lean towards the fuller, more process-forward end of the spectrum, this lot's for you.

Brew Guide:

Best Brewed with: Filter

Lightest Roaster Influence:  We initially profiled this coffee like we have previous seasons - hot and fast, and found it utterly rejected this profile. We've significantly softened off the gas, extended the overall roast time, and reduced the final end temperature signifcantly compared to the previous years - on the cusp of "ultralight", we've found our sweet spot for this coffee.  

Best Rested: 4-5+ weeks

Filter: 62g/L & 96°C, with rest we like to move down to 64g/L & 88°C

Espresso: Turbo shots + 3-4 weeks rest. 18g/48g+ & 20s

We’re tasting: Big process-driven aromatics - we're finding banana rum, overripe pineapple and pear drops. In the cup it's heavy dark stewed fruits - plum, blueberry, apple and rhubarb, with a muscovado sugar sweetness. As it cools the acidity evolves towards tamarind and freeze dried blueberry, with gentle baking spice and ruby port, medjool dates and milk chocolate. 

Traceability

Country of Origin:	Rwanda
Region:	Nyabihu District, Western Province
Producer:	1000 Private smallholder farmers selling cherry to Shyira, Muraho Trading Company
Station:	Shyira
Variety:	Red Bourbon
Elevation:	Station: 1850 MASL. Smallholder farms: 2000-2400 MASL
Process:	Anoxic Natural: Cherries floated & underripes skimmed, placed in a clean tank with a plastic sheet on top, which is then weighed down with cold water. This “water pillow” fermentation weight allows for an extended 48hr anoxic ferment with temperature control. Post ferment, the cherry is moved to raised beds to dry as a natural for 4-5 weeks, with frequent turning.  Cherries were frequently covered during the initial drying phase, which likely contributed to extra fermentation.
Import Partner:	Raw Material
Harvest	Crop 25/26, Arrived UK Dec 2025 Third harvest purchasing coffee from Shyira smallholders.

 

The Story

2025 Harvest Update

In June 2023, the Rwandan government repealed its coffee washing station zoning policy, a system that had been in place since 2016 and which restricted farmers to selling cherry exclusively to their nearest assigned station. Under the new rules, farmers are free to deliver cherry to any washing station in the country. The change has had a significant effect on the sector: competition between stations for cherry has intensified considerably, farm-gate prices have roughly doubled since the repeal, and production volumes rebounded sharply in 2025 after several years of decline.

For Shyira, the effects have been tangible. The station sits in a region with very few other washing stations, and Muraho Trading Company has always paid well at the farm gate, on top of the secondary payment made once the coffee is exported. Under the old zoning rules, many nearby farmers were effectively locked out from selling to Shyira. With those restrictions removed, the station's contributing farmer base has grown from around 750 to over 1000 this season, meaningfully increasing production capacity. We will have more to say about what this growth has meant in practice, particularly for cherry quality, when we introduce our natural lot from Shyira.

Shyira Anoxics

Rwandan coffee holds a special place in our hearts. It lands throughout winter with fresh crops at a point when other East African greens may be starting to tire, and it is in this window that Rwanda and neighbouring Burundi get their time to shine. Our connection to Shyira (pronounced Sheer-rah), and to the Muraho Trading Company washing stations more broadly, goes back a long way. Our co-founder Alex used to handle the Raw Material sample dispatch and roasting as part of a previous role, back when the lab was based in London. It was through that work, cupping every Rwandan sample that came through, that Shyira stood out as one of the most consistently high-quality stations in the country. This is now our third season featuring Shyira, and we have bought both the washed anoxic and natural lots each year, expanding our purchasing from this station with every crop.

Built in 2017, Shyira is situated at 2000 masl, collecting cherry from neighbouring producers farming between 2000 and 2400 masl. This is the highest grown coffee we know of in Rwanda, from a region where very few washing stations are located. When Gaudam and Karthick Anbalagan founded the Muraho Trading Company and established the station, the intention was always a smaller operation with an uncompromising focus on quality. Shyira sits on a hillside alongside the Giciye river, which runs through the base of the station and makes water access straightforward. The cooler conditions at elevation mean the harvest runs later than at lower-altitude stations, and the best of Shyira's output tends to arrive on later containers as a result. It also happens to be one of the most stunning locations in Rwandan coffee.

The speciality coffee industry has historically concentrated value capture at the roasting end of the chain, with producers often seeing limited financial return relative to the final retail price of their coffee. One way to shift that balance is through processing innovation at origin, where low-cost or low-risk techniques allow a producer or producer group to differentiate their output and command higher prices without shouldering disproportionate financial exposure. This matters because the alternative, where buyers and roasters travel to farms and tell producers all the wonderful things they must do to improve their crops so that the gringo can buy at most a few sacks, or none at all if the experiment doesn't pan out, puts the risk squarely on the producer for whom a single harvest can represent a significant portion of annual income.

The anoxic process used at Shyira is a case study in low technical intervention processing done well. The "water pillow" technique was developed by Miguel Fajardo, a farmer, agronomist, and Raw Material's head of quality in Colombia, and brought to Rwanda through a programme of producer cross-pollination. What makes it particularly compelling is its accessibility: rather than requiring expensive stainless steel tanks or purpose-built fermentation vessels, the technique uses clean plastic sheeting adapted to existing washing station infrastructure, the same concrete tanks used for conventional washed processing. This allows for extended, temperature-controlled anoxic fermentation with minimal capital investment, and it is precisely this low barrier to entry that makes the technique viable as a value-capture tool rather than a cost burden. To back that up, we have bought both the anoxic washed and natural lots from Shyira every season since we started working with the station.

Smallholder farmers deliver cherry to Shyira throughout the harvest period, typically carried by hand or on the back of bicycles. Payment is made on the spot according to the weight and quality of cherry delivered, with a second premium paid once the coffee has been exported. Rather than favouring just those who happened to deliver cherry on the specific days that the anoxic lots were processed, the income from the higher-value coffee is added to the collective second payment, ensuring all contributing farmers benefit from the station's full range of output. True maximum impact coffee.