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After this long and memorable day, giant fruit bats serenade me to sleep with their chatter. The next day we go right back to work with three sessions of 28 coffees, which completes our initial overview of the original 59 that are passed by the national cuppers. The coffees that make it through from these first two days will be cupped again in the second round on day three. As a way of expanding knowledge and exposure to coffees from around the world, most of us on the international panel brought coffees from our companies or countries to share with each other, but mostly with the national cuppers, who do not get the chance to try many coffees from elsewhere. Twenty-one different coffees are set up for cupping, and a few for brewing. By pure coincidence, we manage to have an entire table of coffees from Kenya, one from Ethiopia, one of just El Salvadorans, and a fourth of coffees from Central and South America. The Rwandan cuppers are quite interested in the wide array of flavor profiles, and we have a good time talking about what they like and why. It's hard not to see some parallels in Rwanda to many other places I've visited in my coffee travels. There are smells and sights that will instantly transport you to Central America, but others evoke images of other places, like the fact that it is amazingly clean and beautiful and generally very safe in Kigali. Still, there are many signs of need, and one in particular we join together as a group to help. In response to many of the judges requesting the chance to provide schoolchildren with supplies, our judges' coordinator and constant companion, Charles Rwabukumba, puts us in contact with a local bilingual nursery and primary school that has a program for accepting orphans. We arrange to visit the school and donate 63 new desks for the students, all newly made by a local woodworker. We are received by more than 150 students who sing songs and dance their appreciation for the new desks. After, we take photos with the kids and talk with them so they can practice their English and French. One child said that the gift "will make me more likely to study hard to deserve this fine desk." What about the coffee? We have a chance to visit the RWACOF washing station, which is about 90 minutes away on a very dusty red clay road. As this is the dry season, production is done for the season. The manager walks us through the facility, explaining the processing methods, and while some of it is vague (maybe due to translation issues), I gather that he's saying the coffees in Rwanda are largely what we would consider to be a type of washed process. Coffees are sorted for defects and then milled/depulped, and left to ferment for 12 hours. Coffee is then run through the classification channels to sort for defects based on density, after which they soak for 24 hours. Coffees are then dried on covered raised beds for 12 to 24 hours, and then moved to uncovered raised beds to finish drying for anywhere from 10 to 24 days, depending on the weather conditions. There are many variations on this process that may lead to very different results from station to station in Rwanda's 25 growing regions, that will effect profile and quality. The coffee at RWACOF, located at 1500 meters above sea level, appears healthy, if a bit wilted from the heat and lack of rain. This may be appropriate for Opposite page, at top: The Rwandan national flag flying outside the Kayanza cupping lab in Rwamagana. Below: The author posing with some of the children who received 63 classroom desks donated by the COE international judges. This page: Charles Rwabukumba, who served as a guide to the international judges, is a cupper, technician, and mentor for NAEB, became a great friend to the judges. the current downtime planting period, but it's not a given. Other plants in the more western regions (and admittedly at higher altitudes) do not suffer as gravely, indicating that proper care could be a factor, too, in making sure plants are healthy during this regeneration period. In round two of cupping we select the finalists for the COE auction. Twenty-eight coffees in three sessions are cupped, and we determine the top 10. We will cup these 10 again tomorrow to make sure they're accurately scored and ranked. The top 10 review is usually an enjoyable experience, a chance to just enjoy and really experience the best of the coffees the country has to offer. Here's the sad news: Potato. The potato defect is named for its likeness to the smell and taste of this tuber. Don't think fresh, new potatoes; it's more like an older, stale smell. All in all we lose a lot of otherwise great coffee to this singular defect. This is often discouraging as the defect might show up in only a cup or two, and be scored highly by judges who didn't receive the bad cups. Nowhere is this more evident, and sad, than in the top 10, where we lose two coffees to potato defect. There are a few theories on the origin of this defect, but very limited actual facts or data, and we want to impress the need for research upon Dr. Ndambe Magnifique Nzaramba, director of NAEB, when we meet with him. Of utmost importance is defining