Cupping notes: Dark Plum/Tobacco/Pomegranate

Grower: smallholder farmers and members of Arisarina cooperative
Variety: Catimor
Region: Gayo Highlands, Aceh
Altitude: 800 – 1700 meters
Process: Wet hulled and dried in the sun
Certifications: Fair Trade, Organic

Arisarina Cooperative’s goal is to improve coffee quality while preserving and nurturing the ecosystem of the Gayo Highlands. The cooperative was established in 2013 and is now USDA, EU NOP and Fairtrade certified. Farmers can receive training to help them improve their processing techniques and increase their coffee quality.

Arisarina Cooperative is melding traditional Indonesia coffee growing techniques with choice tidbits from wider coffee cultivation practices. The cooperative encourages farmers to use shade trees, a practice not widely seen in Indonesia. At the same time, cooperative members maintain traditional techniques such as intercropping 2 or more varieties on the same small plot.

After handpicking cherry, farmers process their cherry using the traditional wet hulling (giling basah) method. Following harvest, cherry is pulped at or near the farm, on small hand-cranked or motorized pulpers. The coffee is fermented for approximately 12 hours (in small tanks, buckets or bags) and washed with clean water the following morning. Parchment is sun-dried for between half a day and two days, depending on the weather, to allow for skin drying which eases the removal of parchment.

At this juncture the moisture content is between 30-40%. Farmers deliver their parchment to Arisarina Cooperative. The cooperative become an essential part of the process here because a wet hulling machine, though slightly different, requires a similar investment to a dry huller. Wet hullers are larger, require more power and run at a faster speed than a traditional dry huller. Few, if any, individual farmers have their own hullers.

After hulling, the coffee seed is whitish and pliable and is called labu. It is laid out to dry on tarps or patios, where it reduces in size and moisture decreases to 14-15%. This stage the green coffee is known as asalan—unsorted and with defects. Much of the internal commercial trade is for asalan. Exporters, most of whom are based in Medan, will typically finish the drying down to 12-13%, sort and prepare for shipment.

At the cooperative’s facility the parchment coffee is dried and sorted before being dry milled and prepared for export. Small quantities of natural, fully washed and honey coffee are produced, mainly for local cafes and roasters in the specialty coffee market. The cooperative’s coffee is certified USDA and EU organic and Fairtrade.