Day Three and Four: In the Lintong Area and Simalungun of Sumatra

After waking up we enjoyed a traditional Sumatra breakfast of one fried egg and a ball of sticky rice with a kick. The food so far is not too spicy, but be afraid of the little green peppers that grown in-line with the coffee in this area. They are pure fire.

In Sumatra most farmers are un-organized and get no incentives to grow coffee properly. It is only recently that companies are starting to educate people to pick only ripe coffee but even if they do the price is still the same. Before I arrived, I imagined this area was a lush forest but upon arrival I have found that it has been stripped of all shade trees. Now most of the shade trees are down because farmers don't just grow coffee, they multi-crops to help pay the bills.

This photo is from a small farmer that has two acres of coffee this is a microcosm of coffee growers over the entire country. The area we were in that day is called North Sumatra near Lake Toba. Once the cherries start to be harvested the growers have an agreement with a mill to come by on a daily basis to pick up a semi washed parchment with a moisture reading of approximately 40%. This double drying method is what reduces most of the acidity from the coffee to produce an earthy and clean bodied taste.


Most all the farmers we visited have a hand crank cherry pulper to clean the cherry of the parchment. Once they pulp the coffee they will soak it for 24 hours to get rid of the mucilage. This is important-- if they don’t do this the coffee will ferment. Then the farmer will dry the parchment in front of their house for one day before the mill comes to pick the coffee up.

The mill we visited was a mill that did only parchment drying. This is unique to coffee where the drying process is done twice. Once the parchment reaches the mill, they will dry this parchment to about 20-30 percent (depending on the mill). When it reaches the proper moisture, the mill will hull the coffee (take the parchment off) and then dry the raw coffee seed in the sun. This gives it a nice bluish-green color. They then will dry the bean to 13% moisture, which takes about 5 days.

This Sumatran Lady was just starting to pick the fly crop (early cherry). The main crop is going to be coming in September. There are so many issues about their growing practices that are flawed but the entire family is behind them and usually participates to get the job done. On a future bog I will identify these issues.

In the coming months we will introduce a new blogger to you. She is the country manager in Sumatra for Ecom and will share different events throughout the year. She has been our guide along with Adam Kline from Atlantic Coffee.

Last night we stay at Lake Toba in a small hotel on the lake. We ate a traditional meal from the area which included whole fried fish and spicy rice and fruit. Two people on this group got sick but it was probably from the horse meat they ate at lunch and not the dinner. Everyone else was fine. I draw the line when it comes to animals that are domesticated. Sumatra is the land of the Dog. There are dogs everywhere and I made friends with one at the hotel.


Driving through the country you see rice fields and as well as many other crops. Most of the families here grow coffee as well as the rest of the food they need to survive. In most of the rice patties farmers use water buffalo to eat the old rice grass.