Our First Coffee from Java and it's an Anaerobic Natural!
If Ethiopia was the birthplace of coffee where trees were growing wild, and Yemen was the first to cultivate coffee for commerce, then Indonesia was the first forced into coffee production to compete in the coffee market. Coffee became a popular beverage through trade routes, and by the late 1600s, Yemen was the world’s main supplier of coffee. Eager to disrupt trade and take control coffee sold in Europe, the Dutch got hold of coffee seeds, planted trees in the island of Java, and began exports in the early 1700s. Soon after, European colonial powers grew coffee around the world, but Java remained one of the top producing regions.
Java has a long coffee history, and its popularity and distribution throughout the world is part of the reason why java has become synonymous with coffee. Javanese coffee is more widely known for its low acidity, syrupy body, and earthy and spicy flavors. It’s a popular choice for blends, especially for the espresso brew method. However, our most recent addition to our coffee menu showcases a flavor profile that is the exact opposite, and we’re thrilled to have this coffee from Argopuro be our first from Java and our first anaerobic natural!
Dried cherries waiting to be hulled and sorted. Under the anaerobic natural process, ripe cherries are picked and fermented in a low-oxygen environment in sealed drums for 7 days. Afterwards, the cherries are dried on raised beds for 15 days and are stirred every hour to ensure even drying. At the final step, cherries are patio dried for another 10 days.
In Fall 2019, Andytown was invited by the Consulate General of Indonesia on a trip to Sulawesi, Indonesia to learn about Sulawesi coffee production. This trip and follow-up events afterwards allowed us to connect with Ivan Hartanto, Co-Founder of Belift Green Beans. Ivan, along with his longtime friends and co-founding partners Kevin and Kenny Soewondo, noticed that the quality of Indonesian coffee has improved over the years but still goes unnoticed as a high quality coffee producer to the international community. They established Belift Green Beans with a mission to showcase the high quality coffee from their homeland and have Java gain recognition as a major contender in the global specialty coffee market.
Kevin and Kenny Soewondo, middle, with Pak Muhlisin, second to the left, and other members of the Pokmas Walida Cooperative at one of farms.
In one of our first conversations with Ivan, we learned that Belift initially had a two-fold mission in mind: one was to promote Indonesian coffee to the US market because of its lack of representation, and the other was to create opportunities for the local San Francisco houseless youth community. Working with local nonprofits that support houseless youth, they provided barista training to the youth and employed them to serve coffees in tech offices in the Bay Area. They used Javanese coffee beans sourced by Belift. As Belift started to gain traction in their work, it came to a halt when the pandemic hit. With offices closed, there were no work opportunities they could help provide for the youth. As Belift waits for the pandemic to end in order to reestablish this part of their business, they have shifted their focus in the meantime and put more efforts into creating opportunities for Javanese coffee producers.
Belift is committed to quality, transparency, and building long term relationships with coffee producers. However, finding producers that were willing to adapt to improve quality standards was a bit of a challenge. Indonesian coffee producers have gotten used to green buyers only purchasing coffees for one season, and without solid partnerships and no promise of repeat business, the commitment to quality becomes less of a priority. Often, farmers are faced with simply trying to sell their entire harvest and trying to make sure they receive just enough payment to help them get through the year. Unfortunately, this type of scenario is not uncommon in other coffee growing regions.
Kenny Soewondo, far right, with some memebers of the Pokmas Walida Cooperative. There are currently 357 members of the cooperative, 90 of which are women. Here, coffee is placed on raised beds to dry.
One of the first partnerships Belift has been able to establish is with the Pokmas Walida Cooperative. It currently has 357 farmer members, 90 of which are women. The cooperative is led by Pak Muhlisin, and it is based in his home village, Tlogosari, located near Mount Argopuro. He and his father started the cooperative in 2014 as a way to improve living conditions in their home village. Muhlisin studied agriculture, farm and business management at Brawijaya University in East Java before he began farming, and he pursued more intensive training at the Bogor Farming Institute. Initially, Muhlisin had little success in marketing Argopuro coffee to the local market. Coffee prices were very low at the time and local farmers turned to other cash crops. Undeterred and determined, he explored markets in larger cities like Jakarta and found roasteries that recognized the potential of coffees from Argopuro and were willing to pay higher prices. Over the years, the cooperative was able to use money from their coffee sales to build a school in their village.
The Pokmas Walida Cooperative used money from their coffee sales to build a school in their village.
While the Pokmas Walida Cooperative has been able to improve standards and maintain the quality of their coffees, they have also been busy experimenting with processing methods, such as the anaerobic natural process. This is a relatively new processing method, and is a rather unusual one for Indonesian coffee. Indonesia has a tropical climate with high humidity, and drying cherries evenly can be incredibly challenging. Under the anaerobic natural process, ripe cherries are picked and fermented in a low-oxygen environment in sealed drums for 7 days. Afterwards, the cherries are dried on raised beds for 15 days and are stirred every hour to ensure even drying. At the final step, cherries are patio dried for another 10 days. This is an incredibly labor intensive process, but all of that hard work wasn’t for nought. Of the six impressive samples we received from Belift, the anaerobic natural was the one that left us with our mouths agape and speechless.
A member of the Pokmas Walida Cooperative is using a winnowing basket to sort green coffee.
This is a wild, adventurous, and complex coffee bursting with fruity, boozy flavors. However, perhaps one of the most distinctive flavors is salak, a snakeskin-like, egg-shaped fruit native to Java and Sumatra that has the tartness of a pineapple, but a texture and aftertaste similar to green apple. Upon first sip of this coffee, it brought me back to my visit to Indonesia, where I tasted salak for the first time and consumed it like it was candy. It would be easy to use pineapple, green apple, or the generic tropical fruit as descriptors for this coffee, but why do that if we can find something more accurate? To the best of our ability, we always try to identify flavors that can be found from the producing region, so that at least some of the notes and R&D that we share with producers can be more relatable. It’s worth noting that the Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel was developed as a way to calibrate coffee professionals throughout the globe, and while it has proven to be useful, it also has its limitations. The Coffee Taster’s Flavor Wheel is Eurocentric, and for farmers and producers that live in areas where they only have access to local vegetation, the flavor wheel is obsolete and can create more confusion for non-Western coffee professionals. To counter this, Seniman Coffee and 5758 Coffee Lab created the first Indonesian Coffee Flavor wheel in 2019.
Salak, also known as snakefruit, is a fruit native to Java and Sumatra. When peeled, the fruit breaks off into 3-4 pieces shaped similarly to garlic cloves. It contains a hard pit in the center. The fruit has tartness of a pineapple, but a texture and aftertaste similar to green apple. This is a prominent tasting note of this coffee. Photo Credit: "Indonesian Salak Fruit" by Dennis S. Hurd is marked with CC0 1.0
We have yet to find salak available in US grocery stores, and we hope those of you unfamiliar with this fruit will stay curious and encourage you to try different foods. For those of you who do know salak, we hope that you agree with our descriptors and find comfort in tasting a familiar flavor. This coffee also has notes of pink guava and aperol spritz, but on different occasions, we have also tasted passionfruit, kiwi candy, watermelon, and palm wine. These are unusual notes for coffees coming from a region that is known, if not pigeonholed, for its milder flavors. And in some way, offering an Indonesian coffee that is more reflective of the references found within is one way for the country to reclaim space in the coffee industry. If you’re skeptical if Java has the ability to produce unique, high quality coffees, let this one be the first to demonstrate otherwise.
We are excited to have formed this new relationship with Belift. We look forward to growing with them and learning more about the new partnerships they are working on with coffee producers outside of East Java. We are even more excited to share this coffee with you! Try it as a pour over, an iced coffee, or even as a cold brew concentrate to add to a mocktail!
