Mount Elgon is an extinct volcano rising to 4,321 metres on the Uganda–Kenya border. Its western slopes — cooler, wetter, more forested — belong to Uganda's Bugisu region, and it is here that the Bagisu have grown arabica for more than a century.
The region
The coffee-growing altitude on Mount Elgon runs from about 1,300 metres up to just past 2,100 metres. Above about 1,700 the plants slow down, cherries ripen more slowly, and the resulting cup gets denser, brighter, and more complex. That is the band we buy from.
The people
Bugisu — sometimes spelled Bagisu or Bamasaba — refers to both the region and the people. The co-operatives we work with are multi-generational. Grandmothers still on the farm. Sons who left for Kampala and came back. Daughters running the wet mill. Coffee is not the whole economy here, but it is the through-line.
On Mount Elgon we say the coffee remembers who grew it.
The coffee
Bugisu arabica is classically SL14, SL28, and Nyasaland. Fully washed, dried on raised beds for 14 to 21 days depending on weather, and graded rigorously. The cup profile lands consistently in milk-chocolate, black-currant, and citrus territory, with a mineral spine that is unmistakably Elgon.
The coffee we sell as Bugisu comes from lots at 1,700 – 2,100 m, washed, harvest March – July.
The season
Uganda's main arabica harvest on Elgon runs from March to July, with a smaller "fly" crop later. We source once per year, timed to that main harvest, and the coffee arrives in Norway in autumn. We roast it fresh from arrival through the following summer.