Our Caffe Praego Coffee Company was founded in 2010, to personally source fully washed green bean direct from the growers and then ship to our UK roastery, who then finely produces our various Connoisseurs blends.
We provide the very highest quality Caffe Praego roasted beans to our discerning customers, who together, delivered some 10 million coffee drinks in 2022.
Our green bean is sourced primarily from five Co-operative washing stations located on the shores of the beautiful Lake Kivu in Rwanda, and we personally visit each of them each year at harvest time, to agree on our annual tonnage.
Rwanda produces superb Arabica cherries throughout a long harvest from March to June, with the majority of coffee trees grown at high altitude and on rich, fertile, volcanic soil.
We are “unique” in the market, in that we work very closely with the washing stations, co-operatives and farmers, buying directly and paying “Fair Trade Prices”, then “putting back” financial funding to help improve the lives of their families and their communities, with a range of directly managed projects through our charity partner The Point Foundation.
We have supported @5,500 vulnerable, special needs, orphaned children and young adults since 2010 with funding amounting to @ £500k and these have been used for many different initiatives but for 2023 our main focus is directed to:
- Caffe Praego Mwogo Vocational Training Centre
- Ubumwe Community Centre for disability
- Izere Centre for Cerebral Palsy Children
- La Germaine School
- Kigeyo School
For more details on the above and previous projects and the huge differences we are making please visit:
Our Coffee Blends
Our popular “Connoisseurs” range includes beans, filtered and freeze dried blends, to satisfy every taste. Each blend has a different make up but is suitable for automatic and traditional Bean to Cup machines. To enhance the full bodied taste of our coffee, we add a small amount of an equally high quality Robusta cherry bean, grown to create a perfect Espresso with thickness, body and delicious taste. Our coffee graders description of the Lake Kivu taste profile as “sweet, clean and with a hint of berry” producing a smooth, well-structured coffee with a rich crema and maximum flavour – ideal as an everyday coffee and perfect with the addition of fresh milk.
The blend names all have a Rwandan meaning and include:
- Lake Kivu and Lake Kivu Dark Roast
- Inzozi “Dreams”
- Ineza “Kindness”
- Izuba “Sun”
- Amasimbi “Water”
For more details on the individual washing stations and blend make ups please visit:
Sustainable packaging – Our Coffee Bags & Cases
We do not use aluminium packaging, meaning our bags are more environmentally friendly & easy to recycle. Bags are designed to maximise the freshness of the roasted beans with a special patented seal. Caffe Praego cardboard boxes are made from recycled material & can be recycled again. Our boxes contain no bleaches & the ink is from a sustainable source.
Coffee & Art – a great combination
Historically, coffee & art have always been linked. As part of our community projects with Point Foundation, we have supported 145 students through university including 24 year old art student, Frank SETTO. He grew up in the Noel Orphanage having lost all adult family members during the 1994 genocide. Despite traumatic memories, institutional childhood and poverty, Frank is a natural born artist & now designs & paints some of our coffee bags.