"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

The long awaited sequel to the first story I wrote about Bali has finally arrived. Many of you might remember the first installment where I waxed lyrical about my Balinese experiences in the past and how we were now on a mission to explore in greater depths, the coffee coming out of Bali. This story is essentially a report on my findings following my latest journey into the Balinese highlands in pursuit of a greater understanding of the layers that lie beneath the industry that is starting to offer the world, coffee of the highest standards.

I formed part of a group that was made up of industry type people (mostly roasters and trainers) who like myself, have an interest in our regional coffee and are keen to develop direct links with growers. The program was organised in collaboration with EcoCafe, an Indonesian exporter and also with a French organisation charged with formalising the coffee growing region (Kintamani) with GI (Geographical Indicator) status. GI status is an initiative supported by the WTO that gives an area or region the right to use its region’s name as an indicator of the quality of a product derived from the region. The best way to understand what this really means is to reflect, for example, on the changes to the use of the descriptor ‘Champagne’. In the past, all fizzy wine was given the name Champagne. Now, since the region of Champagne in France has achieved GI status only sparkling wine that meets the GI criteria of region and quality is allowed to use the name Champagne. In the same way, Kintamani has been identified as a region with special enough qualities to warrant being given GI status. It was this area that we were particularly interested in.

Our tour took us through the full cross section of the Balinese coffee industry starting with a visit to a huge scale roasting factory responsible for processing the majority of the in-country coffee known as Bali Kopi. Bali Kopi is the iconic local coffee — poorly roasted, low grade Robusta beans, finely ground and brewed in boiling water. Definitely an acquired taste! If anything, it gave us great context and further reinforced just how good the coffee from Kintamani was. Although we did have a look at the production of Robusta outside of the Kintamani region, most of our time was spent with the growers within the Kintamani region.

It didn’t take long for me to realise why the region has gained world attention. Not only does the coffee have in its favour perfect growing conditions — great altitude, young soils and lots of cloud cover — the whole area is underpinned by an amazingly organised social structure that allows for complete traceability of crops and harvests. The Kintamani growing region is broken up (culturally) into sections called Subak Abians (SA’s). These SA’s consist of a known number of villages and each village with a known number of families. Each SA has a democratically elected Chief and office bearers. Because of this societal structure it then makes it very easy to create a system that allows for active participation by external agencies (like ECOCafe) to work with specific SA’s to help them improve quality to a point that their coffee is of a standard high enough to have universal appeal. It also allows us as buyers to form direct relationships with SA’s and be able to purchase not only directly from a Subak Abian, but from a specific family of growers within the group.

We spent much of our time with the growers wandering around their crops and surveying their processing facilities. This gave us a really great sense of how much effort was being expended by the growers on crop improvement and the value they placed on having a product that would appeal to the specialty market.

The most exciting part of the trip was the opportunity we had to sample roast and cup a cross section of the Kintamani coffee offering. In anticipation of our arrival, growers were invited to make a selection of their best coffee and bring it to us to roast and cup. About a dozen growers responded by providing us with samples to roast. Following this, we spent a day cupping (with the growers watching on) and providing feedback.

The cupping was done blind. We knew all coffee was from the Kintamani region but none of us were aware of which grower it came from or what length of time it was subjected to in the fermentation tanks. The results were amazing. Of the dozen or so samples we cupped (of which about 80% was very good) there was a unanimous stand out. This coffee came from a specific Subak Abian called Kertawaringin and reflected an outcome we had believed was probable after visiting the grower’s facilities just days before. We had noted that this particular grower appeared organised and had an attention to detail both in his crop and in his processing that was obviously greater than the others. The coffee itself was clean, balanced and unmistakably citrus in character.

An interesting aside to all of this was the ongoing discussions about the influence the length of time that the coffee spent in the fermentation tanks had on the character of the coffee in the cup. There had been a definite steering by European development organisations to keep fermentation times shorter (12 hours) but consistently, we Australians throughout the cupping, rated the coffee with greater fermentation times as being cleaner and having greater character.

We have ordered a bag of this coffee from this grower — unfortunately the coffee we actually cupped had all been pre sold (30 bags) to a local buyer in Denpasar. However, we did buy a coffee with the same fermentation time, screen size and defect count from the same grower but with a different harvest date. It will give us an opportunity to lab test the coffee through a range of roast profiles and also a chance to play with it through a range of brewing methods and temperatures.

I fully expect this coffee to become one of the most talked about in the region. I dare say that if the US market got wind of it a bidding war could ensue and finally/hopefully these growers will have a return for effort worthy of the efforts they have put in.

I’ll post more about this coffee once it arrives and have had a chance to get some results from it.