PROCESS: Washed
VARIETY: Arusha, Bourbon, Typica
ELEVATION: 1,400-1,900 meters
ROAST: Medium
BODY: Smooth
NOTES: Toffee, praline, and oolong tea flavors with balanced acidity, fruit-like sweetness, and a smooth mouthfeel

In the contemporary global coffee industry, Papua New Guinea is wholly unique both in how coffee is harvested and exported from the country. While there are some estates and plantations, most coffee production comes from smallholder farmers, each with around 1–2 hectares of land called “gardens” on which they grow small amounts of coffee along with whatever else a family or community might need for use or sale.

Sourcing coffee in Papua New Guinea poses unique logistical, cultural, and linguistic challenges. The country’s many indigenous populations are often very distinct from one another in terms of custom and language, and individual communities might comprise only a few hundred people, making communication and the cultural sensitivity required to do business here more difficult than in other coffee-growing regions. Less than 10 percent of the population is connected to or uses the Internet for communications, and there are roughly 55 telephones (both fixed-line and cellular) for every 100 people.

Most of the coffee in Papua New Guinea is processed as Washed lots, and generally speaking, because of the very small size of the average farm, it is done at central processing units or washing stations that are privately or cooperatively owned and operated. The coffee is picked ripe and typically depulped the same day, then fermented for 24–48 hours before being washed clean of mucilage. Drying is typically done on tarpaulins or raised beds.

100% ARABICA BEANS