Indonesian Single-Origin Coffee Beans | Bali Karana Kintamani Volcano | Ubud Processing Station

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Bali Karana Kintamani Tirta Washed Process

Indonesia Bali Karana Kintamani Volcano, Ubud Processing Station, Washed Process.

Flavor Characteristics

The dry aroma opens with orange caramel layered over hints of pickled plum. On the palate, a syrupy, silky body carries notes of hawthorn and plum, alongside sweet, juicy orange. The overall impression recalls the sweet-tart character of sour plum soup, with excellent layering and clarity.

Origin Information

Country: Bali, Indonesia

Region: Kintamani

Producer: Rodney Glick

Processing Station: Ubud

Processing Method: Washed

Varieties: USDA (United States Department of Agriculture), Kar?ka (Typica hybrid), and S-795 (Typica hybrid, Jember)

Altitude: 1,400 meters

Soil: Black volcanic soil

Harvest Season: June to September each year

The Washed Process

Only fully ripe red cherries are harvested. In the first stage, the cherries are cleaned in fresh water and underripe fruit is removed. After the pulp is stripped away, the beans undergo 24 hours of dry fermentation. In the second stage, they are soaked in clean water for 20 hours, which washes away any remaining pulp stuck to the parchment.

The parchment coffee is then laid out on raised racks in the farm courtyard to dry for several days. From there it travels to the Ubud processing station, which sits at roughly 800 meters above sea level, where it finishes drying naturally on raised beds. The parchment is stirred daily on the racks to maintain airflow. Because the weather in the Ubud area is drier than in other regions, the beans dry evenly, and after about 12 to 15 days, once the moisture content is consistent, the parchment is hulled off. A final round of hand sorting removes defective beans to raise the quality and flavor of the green coffee.

The Story Behind the Coffee

In traditional Balinese culture, coffee has long been treated as a cheap beverage ingredient, and the quality from this origin was unstable or even declining year after year. Most of the crop ended up as inexpensive commercial-grade beans. Rodney and his partners set out to change the local perception of what coffee could be.

They chose Ubud, the cultural heart of Bali, and opened the island's only specialty coffee shop. Rodney and his two partners all hold internationally recognized Q-grader certification, which lets them guarantee the quality of their coffee. In fact, they are the only shop in the area with that credential. The cafe runs two roasters, a 1kg and a 4kg machine, and every coffee it serves comes from quality green beans grown locally or in nearby origins such as Java, Sulawesi, New Guinea, and Flores.

The shop's success fueled their ambition to chase ever better coffee sources. Several years ago, all Balinese green coffee was processed by farmers up in the Kintamani highlands, but every year factors beyond their control — weather, cherry quality, the processing environment — made consistency nearly impossible to achieve. So in 2015, Rodney decided to build his own processing station in the front yard next to the coffee shop. When the harvest season arrived the following year, they began buying high-quality cherries from the Kintamani area at 1,400 meters, doing part of the initial processing themselves, then transporting the coffee down to the more stable climate of Ubud at 800 meters for final processing.

FrontStreet Coffee Recommendation

If Indonesian coffee is your thing, FrontStreet Coffee's Mandheling is the natural starting point. Grown in the Lake Toba region of the Lintong area in northern Sumatra, it is processed with the traditional wet-hulled (giling basah) method unique to the island — the parchment is stripped off while the beans are still semi-dry and semi-wet, leaving the green beans fully exposed to the air as they dry. That is exactly where Mandheling's signature earthy, herbal, and spice notes come from. Roasted medium-dark, it brews into a low-acid, full-bodied cup rich with caramel, dark chocolate, and toasted bread aromas, with a long, sweet finish — a perfect match for anyone who loves their coffee bold and heavy.

For the top shelf of Indonesian coffee, reach for FrontStreet Coffee's PWN Golden Mandheling. PWN is a trading company that buys only premium lots of Sumatran green beans and produces specialty-grade Mandheling exclusively; "Golden Mandheling" is its flagship. Every lot passes strict sorting standards for density, size, shape, and color, with one machine-sorting pass plus multiple rounds of hand sorting to remove defects. The result is large, uniform, translucent beans with the earthy and grassy edge tamed — legend has it the beans gleam gold in the sunlight, hence the name. Freshly roasted, it offers sandalwood, herbal, spice, roasted hazelnut, caramel, and dark chocolate flavors with a clean, mellow, layered cup, equally suited to daily drinking or as a gift.

FrontStreet Coffee also roasts a Classic Espresso Blend, a modern nod to the era when Mandheling was considered the world's richest, most aromatic coffee and starred in espresso blends. The famous Mocha-Java style blend of Mandheling and Brazil — born from Taiwanese roasters — marries Mandheling's wild intensity with Brazil's smooth texture, while nutty sweetness balances Mandheling's sharper bitterness and herbal edge. FrontStreet's version adds a touch of Robusta and a dark roast to maximize the black chocolate, nut, and caramel notes, so even beginners can pull a rich, golden-crema shot with authentic Mandheling character.