Blog | Enthusiast Series: Indonesia Tuang Kartika
Category: Enthusiast Series, Our Coffees
Published: May 31, 2022
This summer is bringing with it a series of high-grade single origin coffees to Coffee Project NY. The second in this Enthusiast Series is our Tuang Kartika from Indonesia.
Of the over 17,000 islands that constitute Indonesia, Flores is the tenth largest and tenth most populous. Over 50,000 years ago, this island was home to the smallest archaic human species ever discovered, standing at just 3 feet and 7 inches, or 1.1 meters, tall. (And they say caffeine makes you short.)
50,000 years later, Flores is home to a budding specialty coffee trade, desirable due to the island’s uniquely sweet and woody terroir. This wasn’t always the case: until recently, most Flores-grown Arabica coffee was blended with other nearby islands to be produced in bulk, obscuring its unique character and bringing its specialty price down. Yet, Flores and other Indonesian specialty farms are cropping up successfully.
This coffee’s varietal is called Kartika, an acronym of Kopi Arabika Tipe Katai—it literally translates to “Coffee Arabica Type Catuai.” Kartika is the local Indonesian mutation of the South American Catuai, and is considered to have a singularly excellent flavor profile. This excellence comes at a steep price, however; like many other high-grade varieties, Kartika is extremely disease- and pest-prone.
With a 20-year-long coffee leaf rust invasion towering over Indonesia’s agricultural past, the country understandably relies on Robusta, notoriously hardy but low-quality, for the bulk of its coffee production. Only recently has specialty production begun to bloom in Indonesia, so to speak, with the island of Flores a newer addition to this new wave. As such, this coffee is truly a high-risk and high-reward investment for farmers to cultivate.
Try our Enthusiast Series Indonesia Tuang Kartika for yourself at our online shop. It’s an anaerobic natural process with dazzling natural wine, rum, and tropical fruit tasting notes.
Related Posts
