Fairtrade beers available on the UK market until 2006, when a reduction in the proportion of coffee and an increased alcohol content (now 6 percent) cost it its Fairtrade status. It is still made from Maraba beans. At the time of its launch, Meantime Coffee Porter was the only coffee beer available in the British Isles, and it won the gold medal for the coffee-flavoured beer category at the 2006 Beer World Cup. As the cooperative grew, it built additional washing stations across the area. The first of these was located at Kabuye, and opened in 2004. The third station, at Sovu, became operational one year later in 2005, and the fourth, at Kibingo, in 2007. In 2006, the Swedish Minister for Development Co-operation and Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs, Carin Jamtin, visited Maraba to extend cooperation between Sweden and Rwanda and expose Maraba coffee to the Swedish speciality market. In July 2006, a telecentre was opened in Maraba under the coordination of PEARL. USAID, NUR and Washington State University (WSU) Extension's Center to Bridge the Digital Divide (CBDD) provided funding and resources. Three WSU students spent six weeks in Rwanda helping to set up the centre and train the local staff. USAID continued to be involved with the coffee industry in Rwanda, including Maraba, through the Sustaining Partnerships to enhance Rural Enterprise and Agribusiness Development (SPREAD) programme, launched in 2006. This was a multi-year collaboration with OCIR-Café with the goal of improving access to cooperatives for farmers, and also identifying specific taste characteristics of coffees in different regions of Rwanda. In a 2011 report on geographical indicators for products in Africa, French economist Thierry Coulet wrote that the SPREAD programme was pursuing a designation of origin certification for Rwandan coffee, including that of Maraba in particular. Recent years In 2008 Rwanda hosted a Cup of Excellence competition, becoming the first African country to host the event. A national panel tasted and selected a number of premium coffees, which were then scored by a panel of international coffee experts in a cupping event held at Maraba's laboratory in Kizi. The judges gave a Cup of Excellence award to coffees from twenty-four farms, of which three were part of the Maraba coffee cooperative. The Cup of Excellence returned to Rwanda every year from 2010 to 2015 and again in 2018, with Abahuzamugambi ba Kawa farms among the winners on every occasion.