"Welcome to Five Senses Coffee"

In last month’s newsletter, I started a truly gripping tale (for at least for a few of you!) of our five day journey into the mountains of Bali, in search of a coffee that would lift us to new and sublime heavenly heights. My last story diarised the first two days of the trip; here I describe our last few days and, hopefully, whet your enthusiasm and appetite for our new, highly anticipated coffee, which will reach our shores in the next couple of months.

For those who have happened upon this story for the first time, you can read Part 1 of the story.

The story thus far …

We arrived in Kintamani and spent our first two days visiting growers, collecting samples and roasting them. We finished the second day cupping samples with Ted Lingle and decided which two grower groups we would select our new beans from.

We spent the next three days hovering around these growers, getting to know them and sharing what we hoped could be achieved through creating a relationship with them. They were incredibly receptive and honest about what outcomes they wanted, and about what was possible and realistic in terms of our expectations.

Here in Australia, café owners, roasters, professional baristas and keen domestic users are at the point where they have to spend quite a lot of money to make small, incremental improvements to the result in the cup. For example, I could spend tens of thousands of dollars stabilising the humidity and temperature of my green bean storage area. Doing this might result in a net gain of one or two cupping points once the coffee is roasted. Café owners could spend several thousand dollars improving the quality of their equipment, but again, while there is definite improvement in the result in the cup (potentially several cupping points), the improvement is relatively small for the money spent.

Our focus this trip was to try to make as big an impact on cup quality for as little cost as possible. I felt we could make this happen by getting the growers to understand how much of a role the quality of the green beans plays in the eventual flavour profile in cup. While this seems obvious, farmers (and not just Balinese coffee farmers) are pragmatists. They make assessments about the quality they produce on the basis of return for effort.

It was clearly our first job to convince them that our expectation of quality was higher than the expectations they had previously encountered, and, most importantly, that our expectation was that they would receive a greater return for improved quality. In the case of these growers, ‘greater return’ equates to several things.

Firstly, it equates to more money per kilo for the coffee picked. Our intention is that the extra amount being paid will be over and above the additional costs of labour required to pick to the standard we’ve requested.

Secondly, we want to give the growers the tools they need to objectively examine the progression of their own efforts towards improving cup quality. In real terms, this means supporting them with equipment and specific skill development to help them roast, cup and assess their coffee on a day-to-day and season-to-season basis.

Thirdly, we want to give them confidence that we will continue to support them for the long haul. Hopefully, in time, these grower groups will gain a reputation on the world stage as producers of extraordinary coffee and be rewarded by increased demand — internationally!

Once these conversations were out of the way, it was time to slap on the sunscreen and rice paddy hats, roll out the tarpaulins and get down to business!

The coffee picking season lasts for around 10 weeks. During this time, farmers ‘pass’ each of their trees and pick cherries within a certain range of ripeness. Over the season, a tree could be ‘passed’ up to five times, depending on its yield. The first thing that we wanted to address was the notion of acceptable ripeness.

To date, all the coffees that we’ve received and sampled from Bali have been derived from picked stock with quite a broad range of on-tree ripeness. Our first job was to take a sample of their standard pick and use this to demonstrate to the growers the quality of cherry that we want them to pick and pulp for us. This meant emptying three sacks of freshly picked cherries onto tarps and getting down onto the ground to physically separate each acceptable cherry, one by one, from the others.

Several hours and many aching muscles later, we had a decent-sized sample basket of perfectly-sized and perfectly ripe cherries ready for pulping. We were heartened by the growers’ acknowledgement of the incredible quality of this sample basket and their absolute willingness to get on board and pick to the standard of the sample. I think it is fair to say that we were hugely excited and encouraged by their response.

Our job was done, and enthusiastic handshakes were exchanged all round. By the time you read this, I expect the coffee will be picked, pulped, washed, sundried and delivered to the mill. Normally, the coffee remains in its parchment form for a month before it is hulled (the parchment removed) and packed, ready for shipping. We are sending special grainpro bags to the mill, so that the coffee can be carefully packed for transport, ensuring that it arrives here in as fresh a condition as possible.

I expect the coffee to be milled in the next few weeks and then shipped here, arriving (hopefully) some time in October. I’ll keep you posted. One thing’s for sure – it’ll be worth the wait!

In the meantime – let me introduce you to the growers:

Subak Abian: Ulian Murni
Head of Subak Abian: Made Sukerta
Number of families in the group: 82
Average size of plot: 1.24 hectares
Average number of trees per farmer: Approximately 1,800
Coffee varietals: USDA and S795
Average elevation of plots: 1,080 metres

Subak Abian: Kerta Waringin
Head of Subak Abian: Made Rida
Number of families in the group: 54
Average size of plot: 0.76 hectares
Average number of trees per farmer: Approximately 570
Coffee varietals: Kopyor
Average elevation of plots: 1,300 metres