The Democratic Republic of Congo is an interesting origin, barely on the radar of specialty coffee. Coffee was introduced by European settlers, who owned and operated large plantations using local labor to tend the coffee groves—a story similar to that of Kenya, Tanzania, and other colonized African nations. When the Democratic Republic of Congo gained independence from Belgium in 1960, the land was divided up in redistribution schemes, with each new farmer receiving a very small plot. Until 1976, the national regulatory authority, the Office National du Café (ONC), held a monopoly on the coffee export market. The liberalization and elimination of price controls in the early 1980s created both opportunities and some chaos in the domestic market. Market access is exceptionally difficult; the political and economic instability of recent decades has made producing and sourcing specialty coffee challenging, but projects, organizations, and cooperatives like SOPACDI are actively working to improve lot quality. We love the coffees from the producing regions around Lake Kivu: Burundi, Rwanda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. We find that despite the relatively close geographical area, the lake and its surrounding landscape have an incredible diversity of microclimates and profiles. As a result, Congolese coffees are distinctive and among our favorites from this region of the world. Familia Osorio has partnered with SOPACDI (Solidarité Paysanne pour la Promotion des Actions Café et Development Intégral), an organization of nearly 6,000 smallholder farmers, founded by Joachim Munganga in 2002. Joachim is a producer who recognized the need for other smallholder farmers to access markets and technology that would help them improve quality. Every year, SOPACDI's lots stand out from the rest, with an eye toward a future of microlots and other quality development projects.