Foundational Partner
Heza

In the beautiful hills of Burundi, exceptional coffees harvested by smallholder farming communities are processed at Heza washing station.

Founded by an American couple who moved to Burundi in 2011, the Long Miles Coffee Project has earned international recognition as an innovative, farmer-driven producer of top quality Burundian coffees. Noting that rural coffee farmers in Burundi stood to benefit from improved access to the specialty market and that specialty roasters struggled to source traceable coffees of consistent quality in Burundi, Ben and Kristy Carlson perceived an opportunity to make a positive impact on both fronts.

Passenger’s partnership with the Long Miles team is named Heza in honor of the washing station where the majority of the Burundian coffees we purchase each year are processed. All of the microlots processed at Heza - which means “beautiful place” in the Kirundi language - are traceable to one of five distinct hill communities. Given the extremely small scale of production in this beautiful East African nation, each coffee that we present under the Heza name reflects the contributions of hundreds of small family farms.