Timor-Leste Ermera Assui Kraik Organic
High quality coffee from Timor-Leste (also known as East Timor) is a rare treat. At it's best, East Timorese coffee is like a blend of Indonesian coffee and Central American coffee. It's rich, warm and velvety yet crisp, balanced and fruity. Look for big notes of milk chocolate along with toffee, melon and peach.
Most coffee from Oceania and the Indonesian archipelago is wet-hulled, which is a traditional semi-washed method of coffee processing. This coffee, however, is fully washed resulting in a much cleaner cup than it's neighbors while still maintaining the syrupy body and some of the mild acidity Indonesian coffee is known for. It's kind of like blending an Indonesian coffee with a Central American coffee. This particular offering is quite decadent with a velvety texture and tons of milk and dark chocolate. We also noted an accompaniment of nutty toffee as well as sweet ripe melon and peach.
Reminder! This coffee is raw, you must roast it before brewing
Arrival Date:July 1st, 2022
Acidity & Brightness: Moderate acidity, sweet
Balance & Finish: Good balance with a lingering, nutty finish
Body & Texture: Full bodied, velvety
Flavors: Milk chocolate, toffee, melon and peach
Grade: Very hard and dense, grown at 1500-1700 masl
Processing: Fully Washed and dried on raised beds
Certifications: Organic
Grower: 16 producers organized around Café Brisa Serena
Region: Ducurai Village, Letefoho Sub-District, Ermera Municipality
Varieties: Typica and Timor Hybrid
Recommended Roast Range: City+ to Full City+ (light-medium to medium-dark)
Since this coffee is fully washed, we prefer it in the Light-Medium to Medium-dark range (City + to Full City+). Medium will likely strike the best balance for most roasters. If you prefer to bring out more citrus acidity, end the roast as 1st crack is trailing off. For more toffee and chocolate, roast until you hear the very first snap of 2nd crack.
Royal Coffee - "Timor-Leste, or East Timor, takes up the eastern half of the greater Timor island, part of the Indonesian archipelago and not far from the northern coast of Australia. Timor-Leste’s coffee is small in overall scale but highly significant to the Timorese, 25% of whom rely on coffee production for their livelihood. The island’s inland forests also happen to be historically significant, being the origin of coffee’s most adaptive genetic cross—the Timor Hybrid—a natural breeding of local robusta and typica trees that was identified in the 1920s, and whose vigorous genetics can be found in countless timor-based cultivars in almost every producing country today. The Ermera municipality is one of the island’s highest in elevation and includes its highest peak, Tatamailau. The villages in the mountain’s vicinity are where Café Brisa Serena (CBS), a social enterprise and exporter, has spent the last 10 years developing smallholder coffee value chains. This coffee is produced by 16 select farmers from the Ducurai village, whose farmer community group is called “Assui Kraik”, which translates more or less to “below the Assui hill” and comes from their particular location on the mountainside."
