Your personal Indonesian coffee passport

Your Indonesian blend is from Toraja region in Sulawesi and is a mix of three groups - Buntu Ledu, Parindingan and Sesean Women’s group

SPECIALITY coffee as anchor of culture and HERITAGE

As for the coffee, Toraja is one of the few places in Indonesia where arabica is the dominant species grown. It thrives in the highlands that are over 1500 meters above sea level, and has done so since the Dutch relocated some of Java's arabica production after an outbreak of leaf rust in the mid 19th century. We were definitely not the first to discover the uniqueness of this coffee's flavour profile: the Japanese have been steadily buying Torajan coffee since the 1990’s, prizing the S795 variety which supposedly is responsible for the coffee’s syrupy sweetness. Nonetheless, the region’s coffee sector went into decline. In the early 2000s, the government initiated several large scale coffee rejuvenation programs as a countermeasure, but unstable and low prices and complicated, unfair local value chains persisted, causing farmers to move away from coffee production. In Buntu Ledo, from the 500 farmers that were part of the rejuvenation program, only about 20 families remain. In 2019, with the help of Pak Dominggus, the village of Buntu Ledo set up a cooperative structure in 2019 (Koperasi Buntu Ledo Sipporanu) with Ontosoroh and This Side Up as stable buying partners. As it is set up now, it has huge coffee potential. As far as Parindingan was concerned, it was the right fit not only because they encourage women entrepreneurs, youth education and agroforestry, but because they proved strong to their values. Lastly, Sesean is a  women group  founded in 2023 with a vision to make women farmers support their family economy by utilizing natural resources for welfare as well as independence of the community. The origin of the women’s farmer group started from regular social gatherings and mutual cooperation in agricultural activities. Then an agreement emerged between the members to form a group because they believe in the strength of unity in dealings/negotiating especially with the government and other parties. Located in Sesean Matallo village in Toraja, this group is chaired by Ditha Tandipau and has 25 members .By offering access to technical  knowledge in coffee production, it enables these women to improve the skills of women farmers in managing agricultural production. This empowerment allows them to be more skilled as well as earn a higher income. Overall, the three groups have an underlying commonality which is to earn a fair price for their coffee, improve access to market as well as other resources and support the vulnerable groups such as women to strength their position within the community. 

A deeper look into the specs