Bourbon Coffee Shop & Store

Bourbon Coffee traces to March 2, 2007, when Rwandans Arthur Karuletwa and Emmanuel Murekezi opened the brand's first store in Kigali's Union Trade Centre -- the same day Rwanda's president commissioned the building as the country's first shopping mall. Karuletwa, who had worked in coffee marketing in the United States, returned home wanting to cut out as many intermediaries as possible so growers captured more of the sale price, while also pushing Rwandan coffee's quality up to a level that could compete internationally. He saw the cup itself as a platform to change the story told about the country -- evidence of recovery, trade, and investment rather than only its past. After three stores opened in Kigali over three years, Bourbon expanded to Washington, D.C., and now operates around eight locations across Rwanda and the United States. The Kigali shop still runs on that founding premise: single-origin Rwandan beans, brewing equipment for sale, and a cafe built to put the country's own coffee culture, not just its export crop, in front of both residents and visitors.