What Makes Sumatra Coffee Special? The Connection Between Indonesian Java Coffee Beans and Arabica

FrontStreet Coffee - Introduction to Sumatra and Java Coffee

Sumatra coffee is world-renowned for its distinctive herbal and woody aromatic character. Part of that comes from the mixed varieties cultivated there and the local climate; the other part comes from a special processing method called wet hulling, known locally as Giling Basah, which gives these coffees many of their unique qualities.

Before the 1970s, Sumatra's coffee was processed using two of the world's most common methods, washed and natural. In the 1970s, Japanese interest in Sumatra coffee led to the introduction of the wet-hulling process. This unusual method of processing and drying is largely responsible for Sumatra coffee's distinctive flavor profile, and it is also what gives the beans their characteristic blue-green appearance.

Java may have one of the most complex histories of any coffee variety, with the exception of Geisha.

Despite the name, Java is by no means an Indonesian variety. It originated in Ethiopia. As early as the 19th century, the Dutch introduced it from Ethiopia to Java, Indonesia, hence the name. In the mid-20th century, the French seed company Vilmorin collected seeds from the renowned Indonesian breeding cultivator Prutes and sent them to Cameroon in Africa.

In Cameroon, another breeder, Pierre Bouharmont, found that Java had partial resistance to coffee berry disease, which was causing serious trouble for African coffee cultivation, and that it produced good yields without requiring much fertilizer. After 20 years of selection and refinement, Cameroon released the variety to farmers between 1980 and 1990.

Using genetic fingerprinting of molecular markers, research institutions have confirmed that Java is a local variety derived from the Ethiopian landrace Abysinia. Grown at high altitude, Java shows excellent quality - enough to compete with Geisha.

In 1991, the breeder Benoît Bertrand sent Java seeds to Costa Rica through the International Center for Agricultural Research for Development (CIRAD), making them available to small coffee farmers. The aim was to offer smallholders a new variety that needed less fertilizer and resisted coffee berry disease, even though serious outbreaks of the disease had not yet occurred in Central America at that time.

With that in mind, seeds were sent to every country in the PROMECAFE (Regional Program for Technological Development and Modernization of Coffee Cultivation) alliance, yet the variety was never truly promoted for cultivation in those countries, and none of them officially released it. Java's quality potential at high altitude eventually gained recognition, and in 2016 Panama in Central America became the first country to recognize Java coffee.

Panama regards the Java variety as an attractive alternative to Geisha, since it has high flavor quality, good tolerance to leaf rust and coffee berry disease, and suits low-input smallholders very well.

One useful piece of background: in the 1860s and 1870s, coffee leaf rust epidemics destroyed Indonesia's coffee market and led the Dutch to abandon many plantations. With the plantations in collapse, workers occupied small plots of land and eventually replanted coffee with Robusta and various disease-resistant Arabica hybrids.

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Since Java's quality at high altitude can rival Geisha's, Geisha itself makes the obvious benchmark. Panama is where Geisha made its name: the high altitude, microclimate, and soils there give Panamanian Geisha its alluring cup, and in 2003 the owner of the Emerald Estate discovered it and entered it in the Best of Panama (BOP) competition. Its distinctive flavor stunned every judge that year, and it took first place with an average cupping score of 94.6, breaking the BOP record. Overnight, Geisha became the championship variety the whole world chased. Panamanian Geisha has a marked orange-blossom honey character, fragrant florals layered over juicy fruit acidity, and a tea-like sweetness on the finish. The Emerald Estate's Geisha line comes in Red Label and Green Label grades; brewed as pour-over, both show an aroma that is easy to fall for.

Ethiopia, the birthplace of coffee, is where growers have spent the past decade or so looking for Geisha's original character. A couple established the 475-hectare Geisha Village 12 miles from the Geisha forest, identified the plants closest to Panamanian Geisha by morphology, bean shape, and cupping performance - in effect an heirloom Geisha - and brought them out of the forest to cultivate on the estate. Compared with Panama, Ethiopian Geisha carries brighter fruit acidity. For an entry point, FrontStreet Coffee's Grana Estate Gesha is a good choice: it comes from the Grana processing station at the border of Ethiopia's Kochere and Genlana Abaya regions, founded in 2014 and run by Mr. Israel Degefa, in an area with up to 700 hectares of coffee planting, much of it uncultivated, with fertile soil and shade trees throughout. Hand-picked ripe cherries are dried on raised beds for 14-20 days depending on the weather, then given a medium-light roast that preserves pleasant white florals and brings out sweet orange, guava, and citrus. To go further, the Geisha Village Gold Label and Red Label are the estate-level Ethiopian option, and they are a must for advanced pour-over drinkers.

Geisha is a medium-light roasted, floral, fruit-forward coffee, and its beans are hard, so they tend to sink and clog the dripper during brewing. FrontStreet Coffee therefore suggests a grind of about 78% passing a Chinese standard #20 sieve (roughly fine sugar) and water at 91°C. For pour-over, use 15g of coffee with a small Hario V60 and a 1:16 ratio, then brew in three stages: start the timer and pour to 30g for a 30-second bloom; then pour in a slow circle at low volume to 125g, wait for the water in the bed to drop by half, and continue pouring a slow circle to 225g. Once it has fully drained, total extraction time runs about 2 minutes 10 seconds to 2 minutes 20 seconds.