FEBRUARY 2024 DISCOVERY COFFEE
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Indonesia - Senja Batukaang
EARTHY, RICH, DEMERARA
ESPRESSO ROAST
REGION | Desa Catur, Kintamani, Bali
PROCESS | Anerobic Honey
SPECIES | Arabica
VARIETY | Kartika (standing for "Kopi Arabika Tipe Katai", which translates as Catuai Arabica Coffee)
ALTITUDE | 1200-1350 MASL
ABOUT SENJA BATUKAANG
The word Senja means ‘sunset’ in Sanskrit. Like the different colours and stages of the sunset, this taste profile is signified by a combination of deep and complex vibrancy - with an accompanying sweetness and round body.
This lot from Senja Batukaang is a mixture of different post-harvest processing methods, blended into one to create a complex cup.
The coffee cherries begin in the same large 7000 litre tank, inoculated with different yeasts and bacteria to aid fermentation. The tank is sealed with a steel lid to ensure an anaerobic environment.
Once the desired pH is reached, the fermentation is stopped and the coffees are split into two different drying techniques: One goes into a demucilager followed by washing, and the second goes to the demucilager and straight onto drying beds without washing.
Once the parchments are completely dry, they are sent out for hilling to remove the coffee beans from their parchment, then onto the dry milling process to be sorted based on weight, size, and colour.
Finally, both batches are put back together inside hermetically sealed bags to homogenise their moisture level and water activity.
HISTORY OF COFFEE IN INDONESIA
The Dutch colonial government planted the first coffee trees in Indonesia around Batavia (modern-day Jakarta) in the 17th century. Those the first seedlings were destroyed in flooding, but the second iteration of seedlings successfully produced cherry. By the early 1700s, the first exports of coffee left for Europe from the Port of Java on Dutch East India Company ships. Just a few years later the government was exporting several thousand pounds of coffee annually, making Indonesia the first country outside of the Arabian Peninsula and Ethiopia to cultivate coffee in commercial volumes.
For the better part of a century, Indonesia produced nearly 100% Arabica. However, in the 1860s, coffee leaf rust (CLR) spread beyond its birthplace in Ethiopia and obliterated the majority of Indonesia’s production. Soon thereafter, most farmers replaced their Arabica trees with Robusta. While Indonesia remains a formidable coffee producer—ranking fourth in the world—less than 20% of production is Arabica.
