From Farm to Cup: The Journey of Ugandan Coffee to Bangladesh
The route: Farm → Mill → Export (Kampala → Mombasa) → Ocean freight → Import (Chattogram) → Roastery (Dhaka) → Cup A cup of Ugandan coffee in Dhaka has already traveled further than most of us will this year — and it started long before it ever looked like coffee. It begins on a small farm, maybe an acre, terraced into the hills near Mount Elgon or laid out in the warm lowlands by Lake Victoria. A farmer hand-picks ripe red cherries, one by one, often twice a year. There's no machine fast enough to know which cherry is ready and which isn't that judgment still belongs to a person. From there, the cherry has to become a bean. Washed lots are pulped, fermented, and rinsed within hours of picking. Natural lots are spread whole on raised beds to dry slowly in the sun, the way it's been done in Uganda for longer than coffee grading has existed. Either way, what comes off the farm as fruit leaves the mill as green coffee sorted, screened by size into grades like AA or Screen 18, ...
