Coffee and Tea in Rwanda

Coffee

Rwanda grows mainly Arabica coffee on high hillsides. Higher volumes and prices lifted export earnings to a record in 2025, and coffee production grew 60% in the national accounts.

Each year NAEB runs the Best of Rwanda competition and online auction for specialty lots. In 2026, 25 coffees were chosen from 320 samples and sold at auction on 21 October.

Tea

Tea brought in nearly USD 700 million between 2017 and 2024. In 2023/24 Rwanda exported 38,467.7 tonnes worth USD 114.8 million. About 50,000 farmers in 23 cooperatives grow tea alongside factory estates.

Under the agriculture plan PSTA5, NAEB aims for 58,600 tonnes of tea exports worth USD 175 million by 2029. It plans to plant 40 million new tea seedlings to get there, and is preparing a new strategy to build a Rwanda tea brand.

Where investors fit in

• Coffee washing stations and dry mills that raise quality and price.
• Roasting, packing and branded coffee for export and for the domestic market.
• Tea factories, new plantations and higher-value specialty and orthodox teas.
• Trading and export houses that buy from cooperatives and sell to roasters and blenders.

Coffee and tea exporters register with NAEB, and export lots are checked for quality before shipment. Weekly export volumes and values for both crops are published on the NAEB website.

Risks to plan for

Export crops are volatile. After a record 2025, export crop output fell 20% year on year in the second quarter of 2026. World prices, weather and the alternating yields of coffee trees all move income from one season to the next.