Robbyn and Mickey's visit to Sumatra

Mickey and I have had a long-time love for Sumatran coffee.

Years ago, in the early 70's, the two of us discovered a coffee in Ashland, Oregon with a flavor that blew our minds.  Years later, in 1996, we discovered that flavor again when we started the Salt Spring Coffee Company and roasted our first batch of Sumatran coffee. It has been at the heart of SSCC's success and continues to be one of our top-selling coffees!

This past March (2010), Mickey and I and our SSCC's 'Director of Coffee', Banks Thomas, made our first Sumatran coffee-trip and visited the KBQB coop farms where our beloved coffee comes from. We found there is more to love about Sumatra coffee than just the flavor.

Here are some photos and a few notes from our trip (click to view larger photos and descriptions):

Our Sumatran coffee comes from the KBQB cooperative based in Northern Sumatra in the region of Aceh where all of Sumatran organic coffee is grown.

The KBQB cooperative's representatives, Sam Filiaci and Lito Bombeta, hosted us. We enjoyed wonderful accommodations, meals and had great visits with the farmers, the farms and viewed the cooperative's coffee processing facilities and offices.

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The majority of sumatran coffee plants are 'hybrid de timor' and because of this varietal and the region's climate, the trees produce coffee year round.

Coffee Harvesting and Processing

The coffee is brought to the cooperative's central receiving station and drying fields. The average size of a coffee farm is 1 hector.

When the coffee is dried to 12%, it is put thru a machine to remove the parchment and sorted 3 times to insure quality.

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'Banana Milkshake' coffee

A sign of high quality coffee in its 40% moisture stage is when it has a hint of 'banana' aroma. We were being told about this phenomena all during our visit and finally, on our last day, we witnessed it ourselves!!! Our next batch of Sumatran coffee is from this lot of coffee and arriving soon!

Offices at the KBQB coop

The coop's offices, where they store all the files for keeping track of  kbqb's members and the coffee transactions.  It was amazingly organized! We were impressed!!

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Preparing the coffees for cupping

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The KBQB's coop's pre-k school and women's health centre

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Some unique sights from our Sumatran trip

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Time to head back to Medan and home

We left the coffee region on an 'Indiana JONES-type' airline. It was a smooth ride but later we were told it usually is not like that!  Lucky us!

There's alot more work to be done in Sumatra. We'll be back!!!

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