RiSE coffee box reviews Small Batch Coffee Roaster's Rwanda ‘Twongerekawa’ Coffee.

Founders Alice and Ben first launched RiSE coffee box because they believed that everyone should put down their huge caramel lattes, throw away that instant coffee, and start drinking specialty coffee from a variety of independent roasters from all over the UK. Variety is the spice of life and with so many different origins, farming methods, and processing methods that affect the flavour profile, why confine yourself to the same coffee every time? The way that we choose our coffee selections for our multi roaster subscription is by blind tasting them alongside a dozen other roasters and selecting only those that are the highest quality. You can watch the process of cupping coffee on our YouTube here. We also love inviting our customers to blind taste and choose the coffees to feature in the box!

We have been long time admirers, followers and friends of Small Batch Coffee Roasters based in Brighton. We travel across the country to find the highest quality, most responsibly sourced coffee we can find and not too long ago found ourselves down in Brighton and Hove, inside the beautiful café run by the team at 70 Goldstone Villas, Hove, BN3 3RU - if you are in the area, definitely check it out!

Founded in 2006 this pioneering coffee brand has a true passion for quality and taste. They are a small company as the name suggests, but they are here to make a big impact!

We knew we wanted to get Small Batch featured inside the RiSE coffee box subscription and we worked closely with Small Batch to ensure the coffee was perfect. We sampled a number of their single origins and fell in love with the Rwandan, Twongerekawa. A strong scoring coffee with a cupping score of around 85/100.

This fully washed bourbon coffee is particularly fruity and complex. The coffee is low on the acidic side and a light body which gives it an almost black tea like feeling on your pallet. The light body allows the sweetness from the fruits to come through making it extremely sweet and best drunk black or as a pour over / filter. You can tell it has been grown at high altitudes (up to 2200 masl) which creates slow ripening of the fruit and quality which is often associated with this altitude. The volcanic soil of this farming region gives the coffee its fruity flavours. We detected grapes and hints of citrus. Small Batch mentions a champagne flavour note which we also noticed, it definitely has citrus wine style notes.

One thing we liked about this coffee is that whilst it’s fruity and light, it is not too funky and thoroughly enjoyable. We would avoid milk with this one as the fruitiness didn’t bode too well with milk. But, enjoyed as a black coffee you won't regret it! One RiSE subscriber went out of her way to email us and say that this coffee has stopped her from adding milk and sugar to her drink! She said won’t ever look back!

Another coffee club member said it was an “excellent, very solid specialty coffee. Great job roaster!”

We even had another customer, saying “my lovely coffee beans and treat arrived last week in the RiSE coffee box. Great coffee, nearly through the Small Batch bag already! ;-)”

We also love the sourcing behind this coffee. Small Batch are looking to make a positive impact on the world and the farms they work with; this Rwandan coffee is from a cooperative with a history of investing in women and economic development for the community.

Great work Small Batch and we look forward to drinking your coffee again soon!