day9.coffee day9

Kigali · Rwanda

Question Coffee

Visit website

Overview

Question Coffee operates as a small-batch roastery and café in Kigali's Gishushu neighborhood, owned by the Sustainable Growers Rwanda cooperative network of 40,000+ women farmers and structured so that all proceeds reinvest into agronomy training and direct trading programs for those producers. The parent organization, Sustainable Growers (formerly Relationship Coffee Institute), was formed in 2013 by Bloomberg Philanthropies in partnership with Sustainable Harvest. The Kigali shop is women-run end-to-end (managers, baristas, roasters), trains baristas to international standards, and serves coffee from the highest-performing women-led cooperatives in Rwanda.

Known for

  • Cooperative of 40,000+ Rwandan women coffee farmers via Sustainable Growers
  • Small-batch roastery and café — 100% of profits reinvest into farmer training
  • Women-only operations (managers, baristas, roasters); men can only serve
  • Coffee served on Rwandair, in major hotels, Volcanoes National Park kiosk for gorilla trekkers
  • La Marzocco Linea espresso, Giesen roaster, AeroPress and pour-over slow bar

Why it matters

Question Coffee is the rare social-enterprise coffee operation that genuinely closes the loop — Rwandan coffee was historically grown for export with virtually no domestic specialty market, and Question both built the consumer-facing café experience in Kigali and used its margins to fund the producer training that keeps the supply chain viable. It's effectively a model for a producing-country specialty operation that other African origins have studied.

Production

destoning
null
head roaster
null
color sorting
null
roaster machine
Giesen
filter equipment
AeroPress, pour-over drippers
cupping frequency
null
roastery location
Kigali, Rwanda
espresso equipment
La Marzocco Linea
annual volume tonnes
null

Café

Gishushu, Kigali (also kiosk at Volcanoes National Park)

Sources

More roasters