robusta that will leave you ‘pining’ for more!

Adri from Ontosoroh Coffee had his first introduction to the Robusta from Batang through an acquaintance that sent samples and explained the story of how he and his friends organised a youth group that focused on agroforestry management and added value activities. The organisation was called "Sapta Wening", their main mission being to initiate an economic opportunity for their members (mainly youths aged around 17-30ish working odd jobs) in the pine forest surrounding their village without cutting a single tree. In 2016 they started to plant robustas between the pine trees in three plots (~1 ha each) and to encourage existing coffee farmers to rejuvenate as well as improving agricultural practices for their robustas.

Before, and the majority still is, robusta coffees in the area traded even lower than the R price benchmark of Rp 14.000 per kilo (many farmers would accept prices as low as Rp 10.000 per kilo), for low quality local grown robusta. The guys from Sapta Wening wanted to change this and begun processing better grade robustas from their family farms and introduced it to local cafe, roasteries, and the roasted version as well. The profits they received were re-invested in: a) opening up their own local coffee shop in the pine forest, b) opening up new coffee plots, c) improving the facility of surrounding places of interest, especially the Curug Genting waterfall. Again, all done by trying without cutting a single tree.

Ontosoroh really liked their combination of youth-centred as well as sustainable agroforestry business model and thus at first bought some small batches and then helping them with some equity to buy red cherries for them to process. And the result was the coffee that Maarten tasted when he visited in the summer of 2019. It was this moment of pleasant surprise that Maarten encountered in the summer of 2019. He was sitting in a pine forest, which looked like the lower Alps, but oddly, he was at a coffee plantation in Eastern Java. In between the pine trees of this magnificent forest, both arabica and robusta are grown. This was a trial project of our Indonesian export Adri Yahdiyan from Ontosoroh coffee - and it turned out to be a great gamble.

As Adri says: “I think definitely the most important and interesting part of this project is the youth-led movement to improve the economic situation of their village through coffee and any other means. There are too many instances in the coffee world that cultivation and improvement stopped because of failed regeneration of farmers. They also have an interesting business model where they combined the forest sustainability aspect and other areas such as tourism, F&B services as a source of economic opportunity rather than a competing industry. All done collectively and independently. We really like their idea.”

Sapta Wening, as the cooperative organisation is called, is the perfect This Side Up partner. It exists because of their mission to initiate an economic opportunity for youth aged 17-30 year old in the pine forest surrounding their village, without cutting a single tree. In this sense it is a social youth project, and agroforestry project, a specialty coffee project and a fine robusta project, all in one.

CULTIVARS

SA-436 or as the locals call it: Kopi Java.

elevation

750 - 1,100 meters above sea level.

NOTABLE

Organically grown by default in natural pine forest. Great flavour complexity of dark berries, white pepper, cedar and herbs.

PROCESSING

Pulped natural, honey processed fine robusta: Dried on open bamboo pole beds. All manually picked, pulped and hulled.

TASTIFY™ CUPPING NOTES
2023 harvest

Ontosoroh -Java Batang Sapta Wening Robusta - Honey Washed

The price you pay for Sapto Wening robusta p/kg. We agreed on this price directly with the farmers, disregarding the volatile US Coffee C price.
The farmer group is paid for per kg of green beans sorted which is delivered to the exporter.
Ontosoroh buys green beans from Farmer groups and exports them to the Netherlands. They incur costs for transportation, warehousing, re-bagging, Final Quality controlling, Freight and customs. They travel to each origin atleast once a year to do harvest planning, share feedback and support with various innovations based on available market information.
International shipping from Semarang, Java to Rotterdam, Netherlands. It is inclusive of freight, customs, insurance and warehousing costs.
Average financing cost owed to (mostly social) lenders. This ensures immediate payment to the farmers when the coffee leaves the farm or port.
A standard TSU premium on all coffees designated exclusively to accelerate farmers’ own regenerative agriculture project
This Side Up compensation for spending time and resources importing this coffee. Our work includes year-round contact with producers, managing export, shipping, import, warehousing, grading, sampling, finding and keeping roasting partners for Sapto Wening. € 1,65 is This Side Up’s Model 1 markup. For a full overview of our modular margin construction, see the Trade Models page