Do You Live on Bourbon Street?

We’ve been having coffee at the Bourbon Café for a while now. The Bourbon has several locations in Kigali as well as in the US—Boston & D.C., I believe. I have been meaning to find out how such a name was selected. I mentioned in an earlier post that there is even a sprinkling of New Orleans memorabilia throughout the African décor. So, I finally asked while paying my bill the other day. I explained that I was from Louisiana and that New Orleans, the city that is host to the famous drag, was in my state. The manager thought that Bourbon Street was in San Francisco. Unaware of whether or not San Francisco does have a Bourbon Street (Scott can you help me out on that?), I let him know that THE Bourbon Street was a New Orleans icon. The staff then asked me if I lived on Bourbon Street. Well, I guess I turned about 10 shades of red on that one. NO, it isn’t exactly residential and I proceeded to describe the type of businesses that ply their trade on Bourbon. Now it was their turn to be shocked. It seems like the story is like this (at least according to the manager, I’ll have to do some fact checking on this I am sure): When the Belgians first colonized Rwanda, the type of coffee they brought along for cultivation was called “Bourbon”. In fact, the café is not just a café, it actually serves the coffee grown and produced by the Bourbon cooperative of coffee farmers. The packaged coffee produced by the cooperative can be found in just about any of the supermarkets around. It is exceedingly expensive, however, and that is perhaps due to the fact that most of the crop is destined for export.
So there you have it: Bourbon Street meets Bourbon Café, Kigali Rwanda (and the ensuing shock on both sides. Mom, please send me some tourist info on Bourbon Street so that I can give to the manager and enlighten him).

Here's what Wiki has to say about Bourbon Coffee: Bourbon coffee is a type of coffee produced from the Bourbon cultivar of the Coffea arabica species of coffee plant. Bourbon coffee was first produced in Réunion, which was known as Île Bourbon before 1789. It was later taken by the French to mainland Africa and to Latin America, and is now one of the two most popular Arabica coffees grown worldwide, the other being Typica coffee.[1]

Bourbon coffee is usually produced at heights between 1,000 and 2,000 meters (3,281 – 6,562 ft) and gives a 20-30% higher yield than Typica, but produces a similar quality of coffee.