INDONESIA DAMARKANDANG AZURE HONEY

East Java is the heaven of fine Indonesian specialty coffee growers. The geography is blessed with mountain terraces with cool climate weather and shaded trees that almost mimic the landscape of Panama coffee plantations. Argopuro Cooperative, led by Pak Muhlisin, located on the side hill of Argopuro Mountain, is one of the most the most passionate coffee growers producing the most the most experimental Indonesian coffee we have ever known.

Pushing the boundaries of coffee fermentation, Pak Muhlisin is always interested in learning and producing different types of coffee. In circa 2020, he began working on a small batch experiment of anaerobic fermentation coffee using a food-grade barrel. The result was outstanding, which unlocked new berries and deep tropical fruits that never come out of East Java coffee. Taking this step further, he begins to build a massive 2-ton stainless steel tank to produce a large batch of anaerobic coffee.

Pak Muhlisin has been constantly exploring new processing methods to unlock new Indonesian coffee flavours. His new processing method, blue honey, is an improvised version of the wet-hulled process where the traditional honey process is hulled at high moisture. It gives a blue-ish colour, looks like green bean, and has a mix of chocolaty and stone fruit flavours. We picked fragrant lavender aroma, sweet blood orange, jammy currant, and lingering Cadbury chocolate flavour. This coffee gives new breath to traditional wet-hulled coffee and new hope, making it one of the kind Indonesian coffees that we sourced this year.