Steve’s Indonesian Adventure Episode 5
After a really long but fantastic day yesterday, we had a little bit of extra time in the morning to catch up on some sleep. After a late breakfast at our beautiful Sanur Paradise Plaza Hotel
We got back into the buses for a trip to see some another couple of farms.
We headed into the mountains on Bali. On thing I’ve not really talked about is the scenery. As you all know, we have spent a lot of time on the buses, The scenery though has been breathtaking. From the rolling green hill sides, the small little villages, the lakes and much much more…… Beautiful.
We headed into Ubud, Bali. The first stop was a small local Co-op The Kintamini Plantation. At 1245 meters above sea level, Kintamini was producing some rather tasty coffee. there are 300 farmers sharing 500 hectares so not the biggest of plants but still seemed to work well.
We had a walk around the processing mill, this was the first mill of the trip that was maybe lacking in a little cleanliness
After seeing the Ijen and the Blawan estates, this I found to be a little surprising. With that being said one of the coffees we cupped yesterday was from here and it was fantastic. They are also growing oranges, chillies, bananas on the estate, these are much bigger earners for the farmers as they can sell as soon as they are ready and don’t have the cost of processing like we do with coffee. Sampling an orange straight off the tree, rather delightful even if I say so myself.
The owner of the mill arrived to give us a little talk, his English was as good as my Indonesian but with a translator he talked to us about how climate change and in particular, the amount of rain they have had make farming so much more difficult.
He seemed to be a really nice chap, working incredibly hard to create great coffee.
Another cracking morning, I could spend hours and hours just walking around the plantations, taking everything in, studying the trees, but time now to get back in the bus and head to our second destination of the day.
We headed further into Ubud and to a estate called Pelage. After arriving we were greeted and treated to a fantastic lunch by the owner Mr Latif Talib. A local man, married to a German lady and someone so passionate about coffee, and in particular speciality coffee.
His processing plant was immaculate, all the machinery, the surrounding areas, everything about the plant was incredible. The thought into the infrastructure was terrific. I was blown away by the cleanliness to be honest.
Mr Talib had a real drive about him and he talked about wanting to achieve a coffee that scored 90 points on the SCA scoring system. A great target to have in my opinion. His quality control measures in place are second to none, however, with this in mind, due to the amount of rainfall the area has had, the crop yield was massively down and the quality wasn't its usual high self. Mr Talib rejected all the coffee and will not be processing anything this harvest.
After spending some time at the Pelange plant, trying some coffees and learning more about the processing system, It was time to head back to the hotel.
Another fantastic day, the more plantations, mills and estates I see, the more I want to learn. Two very different set ups today but with one thing in common, good coffee!
Thanks for reading,
Steve
