Tano Batak coffee has a 16 and up screen size and comes from the Lintong and Dolok Sanggul regions near South Lake Toba in Sumatra. At 1,400 to 1,550 masl, this region has the highest coffee growing altitudes in North Sumatra. Our origination operations work with six collectors that buy coffee directly from small farmers and in weekly village markets. The collectors wet hull the coffee at 28-32% moisture and then dry it in green houses. Once around 11-12% moisture, they run the coffee over densametric tables before sending it to Medan for hand sorting. Given the exceptional quality of these coffees, we process each lot separately as microlots. 

Country of Origin: Indonesia

Region: Sumatra/Lintong

Farm Name: Various Small Holder Farmers

Growing Altitude: >1400 MASL

Plant Species: Arabica

Processing: Arabica

Varietals: Ateng, Catimor, Jember, Typica

History of Coffee in Sumatra:

Coffee seeds first arrived in Java from India in 1696, but it was a swing and a miss; the initial plantings were wiped out by flooding. Take two, cuttings from Ceylon, arrived in 1699 with a guy named Hendrik. It’s unclear when coffee planting arrived in Sumatra specifically. Java was the coffee king of Indonesia (aka the Dutch East Indies) for at least 100 years after cuttings first arrived from Ceylon before coffee of any significant volume was grown on other islands. And well into the 20th century, much coffee grown throughout Indonesia was called Java. 

 Growing Coffee in Sumatra:

Coffee grows in the northern highlands, in an areas known as Tapanuli, Aceh and Gayo; and further south at Lintong, near lake Toba (one of the deepest in the world). Mandheling is not a region but a people of northern Sumatra, but much coffee from that area is named after them. Most coffee in Sumatra is grown between 2,500 and 5,500 feet and nearly all coffee is grown by smallholders coffee farmer. Nine out of 10 coffee farmers in Sumatra grow coffee on less than one hectare of land. Virtually all Sumatran coffee is wet hulled, a process known as “giling basah”. Plant Species include Bergandal and Sidikalang varieties of Typica, Hibrido de Timor (aka "Tim Tim"), a Bourbon cultivar known as Linie S, S-288 and S-795 found in Lintong, Rambung, Abyssinia, "USDA,” Caturra cultivars and Catimor lines.