Sumatra is one of the great romance coffees of the world. It is not simply that the Indonesian island of Sumatra embodies a Conradian romance of the unfamiliar. When it is at its best the coffee itself suggests intrigue, with its complexity, its weight without heaviness, and an acidity that resonates deep inside the heart of the coffee, enveloped in richness, rather than confronting the palate the
moment we lift the cup. Sumatra Lintong and Mandheling. This praise applies mainly to the finest of the traditional arabica coffees of northern Sumatra, the best of those sold under the market names Lintong and Mandheling. Lintong properly describes only coffees grown in a relatively small region just southwest of Lake Toba in the kecamatan or district of Lintongnihuta. Small plots of coffee are scattered over a high, undulating plateau of fern-covered clay. The coffee is grown without shade, but also without chemicals of any kind, and almost entirely by small holders. Mandheling is a more comprehensive designation, referring both to Lintong coffees and to coffees grown under similar conditions in the regency of Diari, north of Lake Toba. Sellers often label Lintong and Mandheling coffees dry-processed. In fact, the fruit usually is removed from the bean by a variety of hybrid methods. The most prevalent is a backyard version of the wet method. The farmers remove the skins from their little crops of coffee cherries immediately after picking using rickety pulping machines ingeniously constructed from scrap metal and wood and bicycle parts. The skinned, slimy beans are then allowed to ferment overnight in woven plastic bags. In the morning the fruit pulp or mucilage, loosened by the overnight fermentation, is washed off the beans by hand. The coffee (now in its parchment skin) is given a preliminary drying on sheets in the farmer’s front yard. The parchment skin is then removed by machine at a middleman’s warehouse and the coffee is further dried. Finally, the coffee is trucked down to the port city of Medan, where it is dried a third and last time. Sumatra Gayo Mountain, Aceh. Less famous than Lintong and Mandheling are arabicas from Aceh, the province at the northernmost tip of Sumatra. Aceh coffees are grown in the lovely mountain basin surrounding Lake Tawar and the town of Takengon. All are grown in shade and almost all without chemicals. Processing methods vary widely with Aceh coffees, however, as do flavor profiles. Some are processed by small farmers using the traditional Sumatran backyard washed method. These coffees resemble Lintong/Mandheling coffees, and probably often are sold as such by the Medan exporters. But the Aceh coffees most likely to reach North American specialty stores come from a large mill near Takengon. The mill’s Gayo Mountain Washed Arabica is processed by a meticulous wet method following international standards, and is certified organic by a Dutch agency. Gayo Mountain Washed ranges from thin and grassy to sweet and subtly rounded, a higher-toned, lighter-bodied version of the Lintong/Mandheling flavor profile. The Gayo mill also markets coffees that have been processed by the semi-dry method, in which the outer skin of the coffee fruit is removed and the beans, still covered with sticky mucilage, are sun-dried. These often excellent coffees offer an attractive compromise between Gayo Mountain Washed and the resonant weight of the traditional Lintong/Mandheling. Such coffees are marketed as Gayo Unwashed. The last term is a bit misleading. (Did the beans forget to take a bath?) A more accurate description might be Gayo Semi-Dry. We are a Sumatra Coffee producer and supplier from Medan, North Sumatra, Indonesia. Our group have been supplying one of the finest Indonesian Arabica and Robusta green coffee beans for the past 10 years, to clients from the USA, Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, China, Egypt, Australia and many others. In order to provide quality service and products to our customers, we constantly strive to improve ourselves. We have a Licensed Q-Grader and star Cupper within our ranks, both certified by the Coffee Quality Institute. One of our group companies has also been certified with the Organic Certificate of Production Methods (USDA-NOP). In addition, all of our products are US FDA certified. We produce Green Bean Fully-washed and Semi-washed coffee, Roasted Beans and Ground Coffee with Grade 1 and Grade Specialty.
