organic Tim tim coffee - from Indonesia
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- Country: Indonesia
- Region: Atu Lintang, Aceh
- Farm: Atu Lintang Various Smallholders
- Variety: Tim Tim
- Altitude: 1300-1500
- Process/Method: Wet Hulled
- Certification: Organic
This is a farmer group is made up of 600 farmers in the Atu Lintang district who contribute to this lot.
As well as growing coffee the farmers also grow vegetables & fruits to eat or sell at local markets. Usually there are two harvests a year with coffee being picked in the main harvest from October - December, & then again from March - May as part of the fly crop.
The farmers here pick the cherry which is then collected & taken to a local central processing unit that was initially used for washed coffees.
Unusually for Sumatra, this coffee is not processed by lots of small producers & then collected. It is collected first & then processed as one, which is probably why this coffee has such good uniformity & clarity compared to other coffees from this region.
The coffee is depulped & then runs through grading channels where the floating beans are removed. From here it is the left to ferment overnight in tanks of water (for approximately 12 hours).
After this the coffee is laid out on patios in the sun for a day, until it reaches about 40% moisture content (known locally as gabah). From here it undergoes the wet hulling process & removal of the parchment.
The coffee is dried again until 13% moisture for a further 4-5 days.
The coffees are then rested before being put through gravity tables & hand picked twice. They are then packed ready for export from the town of Takengon in Aceh.
Our Indonesian coffee is smooth & deep, exhibiting flavours of:
Lychee, tamarind & dark sugar sweetness; a well balanced citrus acidity, with a lovely buttery body & smooth mouthfeel.
indonesia overview
Coffee was planted in Sumatra by Dutch colonialists in the late 1600s under the guidance of the Dutch East India Trading Company – or Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie (VOC). Between 1602 &1796 the VOC sent almost a million Europeans to work in the Asia trade on 4,785 ships
With Europe’s ever increasing thirst for coffee at that time, this commodity played an important role in Indonesias' trade, as indeed it does today.
Following early success in Java, coffee was then introduced to Sumatra, initially to the northern region of Aceh around Lake Tawar.
Today coffee is still widely produced in these northern regions of Aceh (Takengon, Bener Mariah) as well as in the Lake Toba region (Lintong Nihuta, Dairi-Sidikalang, Siborongborong, Dolok Sanggul, & Seribu Dolok) to the southwest of Medan.
Aceh has seen much civil unrest throughout its history, but most recently due to guerrilla activity organised under the Free Aceh Movement.
As a result many farms were abandoned, as farmers migrated to escape the unrest.
Incredibly, the devastation of the 2004 Boxing Day earthquake & tsunami did provide a silver lining, as it focused international attention on Banda Aceh. Subsequent aid spotlighted the region& served to bring relative peace to Aceh.
Now farms are being revitalized via new planting & pruning & hope is returning.
The average farm size in Sumatra is small, just 1 to 5 hectares across the country. Different varietals can often be found growing together. Over the last 50 to 100 years this has led to hybridization. This natural crossbreeding has produced a variety known locally as Berg en Daal.
Sumatran coffees are mainly produced by a unique semi-washed process which is sometimes described as “wet-hulled” (known locally as Giling Basah).
In this process the coffee is picked, machine pulped (usually on the individual small holding), then partly sun dried. The parchment is removed revealing a whitish coloured, swollen green bean.
The drying is then completed on the patio where the seed quickly turns to a dark green colour unique to Sumatra.
This method brings about more body & often more of the character that makes Indonesians coffees so unique & recognisable, with flavours ranging from earthy herbs & deep chocolate to citrus & spice.