Launching our new coffee origin, with an amazing rich and important story, highlighting the genuine impact of taking international knowledge and sharing this in an upcoming new origin for Specialty Coffee. We are beyond excited to be introducing you to our three new Timor-Leste coffees.
We have purchased after careful selection a natural, washed and honey processed coffee, highlighting the influence processing imparts on this incredible coffee. Each of these coffee stands on its own merit and has unique amazing flavours.
If you had ever considered trying three coffees of the same variety, from the same region, processed with every single detail controlled correctly, where the only influence creating all the flavor nuances, is down to the processing method, this is your opportunity.
The Raimutin Honey: milk chocolate, vanilla, and “cappuccino"
The Loclo Washed: pineapple, lotus biscuits and Asian pear.
The Raimutin Natural: brown spices, candy floss and cashew nuts.
A little bit more about Timor-Leste and the story behind these coffees:
Timor-Leste is a small young nation, becoming the first new independent state of the 21st century in 2002. This followed 25 years of conflict that claimed 200,000 lives and destroyed all infrastructure. Most people lived in extreme poverty at this time. Today the population is 1.3 million and many improvements have been made.
Timor-Leste is a country heavily reliant on income from oil, their current oil production will end within 3 years and their petroleum fund will likely run out within 15 years.
Coffee is the most important agricultural crop, and with the end of oil income, improving the coffee sector is of critical importance, with coffee being the second-highest earner for the country after oil. 37% of households already depend on coffee for income. Current productivity is extremely low, profitability is both low and volatile as almost all coffee is sold in the commodity market for a discounted C price.
Our friends and producers at origin Raw Materials, have focused on raising coffee quality, increasing productivity, and building demand in markets that offer higher, stable prices.
Coffee farmers and village elders were involved in early strategic meetings and the focus was on sustainably raising and maintaining the quality of Atsabe’s coffee predictably above 80 points, connecting with those roasters who want to commit long-term, and systematically solving the diverse challenges laying along the path to selling in the specialty market; financial, legal, cultural, infrastructural, technical etc.
A custom built wet mill was built in 2018 in Atsabe, Ermera. It was designed in-house using knowledge from similar International wet mills, so the Atsabe processing centre uses gravity to move coffee through the stages, no double handling, and no unnecessary machinery. Each section of the plan uses materials that are local and readily available, using only standard shapes and dimensions already found in the construction of the community’s houses to ensure easy replication.
The community was then taken through a five day coffee plant management, harvest, and processing course, that was adapted to suit local circumstances, collaborating with the Market Development Facility and Asian Development Bank to produce a customised best practices video in both Tetun and English.
If you would like to delve a little deeper into this wonderful example of what this type of support means to farmers and their communities at origin, who already have the physical coffee and soil and conditions, to take what they have and to increase their quality and how that directly correlates to greater income, please check out this video here.
In the last year, two more community wet mills have been completed, the first cupping lab has been built, farmers are earning increased prices (up to 3 x), production has tripled, and national titles have been won.
RAW Coffee Company has purchased three sacks of each of these coffees to test the market, and our job now is to successfully introduce this new coffee origin to you our customers, and to share this happy story. Hopefully, you will love it as much as we do, and we will be able to commit to greater volumes and be one of the long term roastery partners these guys desperately need.
