Bali is known by many names for those who have visited the island. Many Indonesians refer to this piece of paradise as “Pulau Dewa” or “Island of the gods”. Since October 2002, the island has experienced a marked decline in the number of foreign tourists arriving to enjoy the scenic, cultural and religious diversity found here. Hopefully, with a peaceful election campaign behind us, Bali will once again see tourists return in large numbers.
Our visit to Bali in March was not a public holiday, but rather a visit to observe the cooperative Arabica farming system found in the mountainous areas of central Bali. Traditionally, Balinese coffee was of the robust variety. This is the coffee that many tourists visiting the island experience and love. Robusta’s origins here date back to the early 20th century or earlier. Colonial commercial plantations never had an impact on Bali because the Dutch did not gain any degree of control over the island until the 1900s. By then, the large plantations of Java, Sumatra, and Sulawesi were well established. Most likely the Robusta in Bali came through traders from Ampenan in Lombok. Growing conditions in Bali are ideal for coffee trees, and small-scale production quickly spread into the cooler and higher-altitude areas of the island.
In recent times, with the fall in Robusta prices, Arabica has been planted in various areas of the island. Some of these plantations are in commercial plantations, however, most are beans grown by smallholders in various villages that are located on the volcanic peaks. Our visit was to examine the drying and processing facilities for this mountain grown Bali Arabica.
As in the rest of the coffee world, small producers make up the majority of producers, but receive little real financial reward for their efforts. Our concern is always to find a way to help these small producers improve their selection, drying and grading processes so that they can market their coffee in the specialty coffee market outside of Indonesia. In most cases, producers are more than happy to hear ideas on how to improve the final quality of their product. In Bali, the tree yields in raw cherries are very good. Most cooperative producers are non-certified organic; the costs of pesticides versus the price of finished beans are meaningless. Small producers almost universally follow the dry method of processing grains. This involves placing the fruit in the sun in large, flat concrete drying pens. The coffee is raked regularly to ensure that drying takes place at a constant rate. Before drying, the cooperative removes poor quality cherries, usually berries that are not ripe, have evidence of superficial fungal diseases, or berries damaged by birds or other pests. After drying and removing the remaining mucilage, the grains are sorted again. This time, the beans are graded based on whether there is evidence of borer damage, discoloration, black beans, or split and cracked beans. This is the scope of the classification: cooperatives in origin do not perform size selection, since normally the grains are sold to large producers who then classify more.
We like the early season greens that we saw in the highlands of Bali. Colors and grain firmness are good, as is the overall quality. The test roast led us to decide that the dry processed bean had some characteristics reminiscent of lower altitude Java Arabica beans. A very mild taste, slightly honeydew … We look forward to being in Bali this year to harvest most of the 2004 crop.