Few industries are as emotionally and politically charged as coffee. Coffee has pioneered fair trade, organic, Rainforest Alliance, transparency, and direct trade—confronting parts of its colonial past from within, driven by consumers who want to be part of a better world.

Now, in the 2020s, the industry does not rest. It raises challenges to the limitations of its past sustainability successes and brings attention to injustices and crimes committed in current violent conflicts, for example in Palestine and Ukraine. Coffee is, and should be, political.

But there are unacceptable blind spots in the moral position of coffee. D.R. Congo is one particularly painful blind spot.

The people around Lake Kivu have suffered from war for three decades—displacement, hunger, sexual violence, and murder affecting millions of people. UN agencies and humanitarian organizations report extreme and widespread sexual violence in Eastern D.R. Congo. Some reports describe the scale in stark terms, such as “every 30 minutes a child is raped in Eastern D.R. Congo.” Let that sit—or better, do not.

Why don’t Western news outlets talk more about this? So-called “developed” countries are connected to the region, as the digital transformation depends on resources found there, especially coltan.

The connection of rare minerals to the coffee industry is limited. But the very same region in Eastern D.R. Congo produces coffee too. And this coffee makes its way into Western cups, sometimes informally traded through neighboring countries like Uganda, Burundi, or Rwanda.

Which brings us to a central problem. Rwanda is not seen as neutral in the Congolese conflict. UN expert reports and various human rights organizations have documented allegations of Rwandan involvement in supporting the M23 group with arms and troops. Since 2025, M23 has occupied large areas of territory, contributing to an immense wave of violence.

While this has been occurring, the coffee industry largely does not talk about the suffering or the potential for coffee smuggling. Instead, it celebrates Rwandan coffee from Lake Kivu, including origin trips with happy photos and impact reports telling the inspiring story of Rwandan coffee development.

This text should not lead to a shaming of Rwandan coffee. But if coffee is political, and if coffee seeks transparency, the Congolese story must be told. The Congolese people must be heard—and must be supported. Proudly supporting coffee from Lake Kivu while silencing developments on the Congolese side does the opposite.

And there is a chance you have roasted Congolese coffee without knowing it. Throughout the decades-long conflict around Lake Kivu, coffee has regularly crossed borders informally into Uganda, Rwanda, and beyond.

Few stories reveal coffee’s selective memory as clearly as Conilon. Today, the industry celebrates Brazilian Canephora innovation, publishes reports about Conilon’s future, and praises Espírito Santo as one of the world’s most dynamic coffee regions. Yet the genetic roots of Conilon trace back across the Atlantic to the forests and rivers of present-day D.R. Congo, particularly the Atlantic Congolese region around Kouilou and Kwilu, where wild Coffea canephora still grows today.

The irony is difficult to ignore. The coffee world proudly celebrates Brazilian Arabica, an industry that historically benefited from the labor of millions of enslaved Africans. It now celebrates Conilon, a coffee built on Congolese genetic material. Yet how many coffee professionals have ever visited D.R. Congo? How many origin trips are organized to the Atlantic Congolese forests that gave rise to some of the most important Canephora genetics on Earth?

D.R. Congo should not appear in coffee conversations only when violence erupts. Its forests contributed genetic resources that shape modern Canephora. Its people were caught in the systems that built the global coffee economy. Its farmers continue to produce coffee under some of the most difficult conditions on Earth. If coffee is serious about origin, transparency, and justice, Congo cannot remain an afterthought.

If coffee is political, it must be political on the Rwandan shores of Lake Kivu, too. It must call out Congolese involvement in both Brazilian Arabica and Brazilian Canephora.

The industry can only create a meaningful payoff for Congolese coffee’s contribution to the world if it first recognizes the scale of that contribution and the circumstances under which it was made.