The Workhorse Washed A+ Community Lot

About
Introducing "The Workhorse Community Lot" from Mountain Harvest, a dedication to challenging stereotypes surrounding Ugandan coffee.  Started in 2017 by a team comprised of young coffee professionals and impact-focused nonprofit development workers with the guiding vision of Kenneth Barigye (MD), Mountain Harvest realized that to build greater resiliency of the smallholder farmers and the farmlands we love, we needed to create a new kind of Ugandan coffee business centering farmer engagement and quality coffee. We needed to create a new narrative for Ugandan coffee by understanding it better.

This exceptional blend is a result of three years of intensive research by our Quality Team to understand why Ugandan coffee fell short of market demands. Through stringent quality analysis and meticulous selection, Mountain Harvest has earned a reputation as the primary source for consistently high-quality farm-washed parchment in Uganda. Blending sweet and sugary profiles from the South with complex acidities from the North, "The Workhorse Community Lot" offers a versatile single-origin or reliable coffee for both filtered brews and espresso.

As our dear friend, Bartholemew Jones of Cxffeeblack says, "the amount of energy, creativity, and attention of detail that comes when we honor our community" is seen in something called a "community lot." When we come together to bring forth change, understanding we all deserve excellence, we can build something reliable, loyal, consistent, and tasty for everyone across our supply chain. More than just coffee, it symbolizes transformation and resilience—a narrative triumphing over preconceived notions. Experience the taste of innovation with each sip and join us in reshaping the story of Ugandan coffee.

Process
Taking what is traditional and making it exceptional, Mountain Harvest meets smallholder farmers of Uganda where they are in their understanding by increasing farmer access to education and process infrastructure. Traditionally, Ugandan smallholder farmers of Elgon process at the farm or household level, creating the variability that lends itself to inconsistency and a high fade factor. This has created an unfortunate stereotype that Ugandan coffee cannot be stable. To challenge this narrative, Mountain Harvest invested its first three years into understanding the causes behind this inconsistency. Mountain Harvest began building quality-focused education, teaching regenerative practices at the farm level, and drastically changed its buying strategies. Through community-led managed processing stations and purchasing coffee at higher moistures, Mountain Harvest can finally dry our volume products, creating an incredibly stable washed product that rests within our temperature-controlled warehouse. Now, instead of tired and faded coffee, Mountain Harvest has proven that Ugandan coffee is stable, balanced, and consistent.

Learn more about Mountain Harvest's Work