Papua New Guinea

An island nation in the southwestern Pacific, encompasses the eastern half of New Guinea and its offshore islands. an extremely diverse country, with over 800 different languages spoken. Most of the tribes from the highlands had contact with the western world until the 1930s, as exploration in PNG had been minimal. PNG is now a paradox between western influence and indigenous traditions.

Commercial coffee production started in Papua New Guinea in the 1920s, with seeds brought from Jamaica’s Blue Mountain, a Typica known as Jamaica Blue Mountain. Most coffee in Papa New Guinea now comes from smallholders who tend to their coffee gardens, as they call them locally. These smallholders are subsistence farmers (meaning they live of their land), and they also grow coffee—there are no coffee farmers per se. Each garden might have anywhere from a couple to a couple hundred trees of coffee and parchment deliveries can range from 25–65 kg.

Keto Tapasi comes from smallholders between 1600—1800 masl from the Chuave District on the border of the eastern Highlands and the Chimbu Province. Coffee is processed by smallholders using hand-depulpers and small homemade fermentation setups, sun-dried, and then transported to Goroka for dry-milling.Flavor notes in the cup of toffee, nut brittle and savory herbs with tart citric acidity.

Sumatra

A large Indonesian island west of Java and south of the Malay Peninsula, is known for its rugged tropical terrain, wildlife and smoldering volcanoes. The Aceh region coffees are grown in the lovely mountain basin surrounding Lake Tawar and the town of Takengon. All are grown in shade and almost all without chemicals. The flavors produce rustic and earthiness, with a hefty body, complex sweetness and herbal nuances.

This lot comes from the female members of the cooperative Kopi Wanita, which is a part of a larger grower group called Koptan Gayo Maegan Berseri. Kopi Wanita is a Fairtrade-certified group which grows organic coffee in the Jagong District of Aceh, Sumatra.

Almost 40 percent of Kopi Wanita's members are female, many of them widowed or raising children alone as single parents. Agriculture is the primary source of income for most people in the area, and it is especially difficult for single mothers to tend to both crops and children, in addition to households and community obligations. The co-op hopes that by separating and marketing the women's coffee they will be able to return the profits to training programs for the female members, including farm training and education in other skills that will help them earn a sustainable living.

The cup will exude notes of herbs, clean, tangy and heavy flavors.